Hunters gambit change

[Gondorian]

I think pre SF is hardly relevant since we are in LL, my statement also doesnt imply that everything about the class is flawed but that the draw options are bad compared to others.

Well, I guess then maybe I just misunderstood you what you wrote when you said they have a "fundamental design flaw". To me, that means that there was a flaw in there from the start, yet CotC+DP has proven that's not the case.

[Gondorian]

Gambit is the only reason why anyone would pick a hunter in the first place.

If a class is unplayable until one card is added that now makes it all playable then the card is broken. The rest of the cards should be sorted out, rather than depend on a crutch. This crutch has knock-on effects.

So I don't understand you wanting to cling onto it as opposed to fix some other cards.

I personally don't think it's unplayable without Hunter's Gambit (since I actually played with CotC and DP before SF), so thankfully I don't think lots of hunter cards need buffing. But we could help a few once Gambit is balanced.

[BlastMan]

It's not a cantrip like we find in Rogue flavor (unless you misunderstood what he was proposing due to him not clearly specifying the text), since you need to have destroyed the Gambit (most easily done by killing the ally) to get the draw. This fits with the core Hunter flavor that they have to earn benefits by killing things. This is obviously weaker than direct cantrip, but it does health reduction and doesn't need a friendly ally in play and able to attack (as opposed to Backstab which does).

The reason for not just removing the exiling has been covered above in my other replies.

by cantrip, i mean a card that just replaces itself (draw 1 on use kind fo thing) and does a fairly weak thing other than that. meaning the 1 draw makes it somewhat playable. his suggestion at 2cc, no hunter will use it, even vic. maybe at 1cc, vic would as long as there was no exile.

It's overpowered and undercosted card draw. It was let through despite that all this time thanks to the idea that classes can have some signature strong cards (why can't Gambit be the hunter one, I thought), but it throws off too much other balance. It's very clear now. We've had 8 months of this version to see it.

And Hunter's Gambit IS the card for Victor that was for him to cycle. I designed it for him specifically. So I would prefer to make it right for him again but not broken for others and address the others when we've had proper chance to assess them again. I think they are all actually in decent spot and don't need so much help to be viable as Victor needed before Gambit.

how did it throw off balance? victor was all around playable with many different styles with 3cc, no exile gambit. he was where i wish all heroes were. several different types of decks that had a decent win rate for skilled players. he wasnt OP until fat anmor vic came around. which used as much draw as it could get, not just gambit. adding the exile to gambit didnt hurt fat vic as much or other hunters but hurt all 40 card vic's.

i dont see how gambit was overpowered and under costed at 3cc. the recycling cost and reuse was 4se and 3cc.

you said gambit IS (now was) the card for victor. you personally designed it for victor. and it was good. one of the best cards ever designed to help a specific hero. it made so very many victor builds playable. most of which are not playable now with the exile.

why not revert it to 3cc, 2 draw, 2 damage or health reduction and no exile but add in that if this card was returned from graveyard, the draw is 1 (and maybe the damage is one). i know that would require a lot more coding. and i dont know how you would fit that all on the card, but that is a lot more reasonable and still helps 40 card vics.

[H1TACH1]

Oh, if you think Gambit is unbalanced and Blood Frenzy is balanced... please nerf Gambit and make a new card like Blood Frenzy for the Hunters too.
I'd like lose 1 health for "only 1 plus card each turn"

About the Gambit's change, we'll see in the time, but I think that will be played less hunters in the next future without the draw power of the Gambit. If you want this, its fine.
Vic is dead after the last changes, the other Hunters will take his place soon :/

[Gondorian]

i dont see how gambit was overpowered and under costed at 3cc. the recycling cost and reuse was 4se and 3cc.

I think everyone is too fixated on Victor. I don't mind there being a great card for Victor that sucks for all the other Hunters. I won't say that was the goal of Hunter's Gambit because obviously drawing 2 cards is great so I went with it, but it really doesn't matter which hero we are talking about here.

Let's compare Hunter's Gambit to some other cards using a selection of terms I either borrowed from elsewhere or made up:


BLOOD FRENZY

1) It's an UNCONDITIONAL PRODUCER. Attach to your hero and it produces exactly 1 card draw for you unconditionally every turn.

2) It's an UNCONDITIONAL BURDEN. It does 1 damage to your hero per turn always.


ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

1) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. For each opposing ally killed or enemy item destroyed, it produces 1 card for you.

2) That's it.


HUNTER'S GAMBIT

1) It's an ALLY ANSWER. If there's an ally on board, this can help deal with it. Whether it's doing -1HP or -2HP, it will help towards getting it dead.

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. It produces 2 cards in hand when destroyed (usually by killing the ally you put it on).


BACKSTAB

1) It's a CONDITIONAL ENHANCER. If you have an ally to put it on, you can enhance its attack and keywords (with ambush).

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. If you have an ally to put it on, it will produce 1 card for you.


TAINTED ORACLE (shared only to show off the final term)

1) It's a THREAT. This ally plays on the board, where it threatens to do damage to the opposing hero or allies.

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. When this ally is killed, it produces two cards for you.


So Gambit does double duty and in fact the two work together. The best situation of use is to solve the issue of Victor getting at the last 1HP of the ally he used his ability on (what it was designed for).

But it does more than that because -1HP is not affected by damage reduction, so it can be used in other places as well by any hunter to help pick something off. Removing an ally from the board is already great, but you also get your two cards for that because you met your condition with it.

Who else draws 2 cards in one go and can do it multiple times if they want without losing tempo because they can also be answering something?

Compare to the conditional draw of IGG which does not help you meet the condition. Compare to conditional enhancer (which always needs extra thing on board to enhance, compared to HG which does not) and conditional producer of Backstab.

Clearly without the unconditional burden, Blood Frenzy would be hands down the best draw card in the game. Some people still think it might be. But it's not. It doesn't provide any answers to anything on the board and it only gives 1 card per turn and you can't play multiples in a single turn.


Side note: If someone wants to write up my article I've been meaning to write for a few years called "Threats, Answers, Producers and Enhancers" based off the above, that would be great. There's really not enough TCG theory shared here and I think actually it could be useful for discussions like this.

[Veles]

My predictions:

This change will prob force BB and Baduruu even more into undead direction. They will replace Gambit with more copies of Tombstone beacon. This is ofc very slow and it would put them down significantly. Skervox will have even less reasons to play ally based builds. RD Baduruu will become very niche deck. Any other shadow hunter build will become unplayable until further notice. Ally based Gwen dead. Ythan takes a big hit too. He can not afford any tempo sink like WotF and 1 draw from gambit will not cut it so he will be reduced to all in deck with homunculus. I am actually not sure how much this will even help Vic.

As far as wider meta goes this will buff human homunculus even more. Fortified wisp will become near impossible to get rid of for hunters especially if they chain multiples of them. Same with dealing with Vigilant Wisp into Entangled Wisp.

[AmberFade]

My predictions:

This change will prob force BB and Baduruu even more into undead direction. They will replace Gambit with more copies of Tombstone beacon. This is ofc very slow and it would put them down significantly. Skervox will have even less reasons to play ally based builds. RD Baduruu will become very niche deck. Any other shadow hunter build will become unplayable until further notice. Ally based Gwen dead. Ythan takes a big hit too. He can not afford any tempo sink like WotF and 1 draw from gambit will not cut it so he will be reduced to all in deck with homunculus. I am actually not sure how much this will even help Vic.

As far as wider meta goes this will buff human homunculus even more. Fortified wisp will become near impossible to get rid of for hunters especially if they chain multiples of them. Same with dealing with Vigilant Wisp into Entangled Wisp.

This sums up what will happen perfectly.

If a class is unplayable until one card is added that now makes it all playable then the card is broken. The rest of the cards should be sorted out, rather than depend on a crutch. This crutch has knock-on effects.

With that logic nearly every class has to be completely redesigned.

Warriors - take away BF = awfull
Rogues - take away IGG/Ankle Breaker = awfull
Priests - take away Tidal Wave = awfull
Elementals - take away MC = awfull

If you take out key class cards you can make near every class way worse or completely useless immediately. Imo this logic doesnt hold up. The only exceptions are Wulven because their class cards are underwhelming to begin with (thats why no one plays them aside of Moon) and mages because they are very flexible with their builds.

So if you want to remove dependancy from a certain card for each individual class you will have to completely redisign the game.

[BR34K P01NT]

man this compliccated

[LeonTheBarbarian]

I think everyone is too fixated on Victor. I don't mind there being a great card for Victor that sucks for all the other Hunters. I won't say that was the goal of Hunter's Gambit because obviously drawing 2 cards is great so I went with it, but it really doesn't matter which hero we are talking about here.

Let's compare Hunter's Gambit to some other cards using a selection of terms I either borrowed from elsewhere or made up:


BLOOD FRENZY

1) It's an UNCONDITIONAL PRODUCER. Attach to your hero and it produces exactly 1 card draw for you unconditionally every turn.

2) It's an UNCONDITIONAL BURDEN. It does 1 damage to your hero per turn always.


ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

1) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. For each opposing ally killed or enemy item destroyed, it produces 1 card for you.

2) That's it.


HUNTER'S GAMBIT

1) It's an ALLY ANSWER. If there's an ally on board, this can help deal with it. Whether it's doing -1HP or -2HP, it will help towards getting it dead.

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. It produces 2 cards in hand when destroyed (usually by killing the ally you put it on).


BACKSTAB

1) It's a CONDITIONAL ENHANCER. If you have an ally to put it on, you can enhance its attack and keywords (with ambush).

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. If you have an ally to put it on, it will produce 1 card for you.


TAINTED ORACLE (shared only to show off the final term)

1) It's a THREAT. This ally plays on the board, where it threatens to do damage to the opposing hero or allies.

2) It's a CONDITIONAL PRODUCER. When this ally is killed, it produces two cards for you.


So Gambit does double duty and in fact the two work together. The best situation of use is to solve the issue of Victor getting at the last 1HP of the ally he used his ability on (what it was designed for).

But it does more than that because -1HP is not affected by damage reduction, so it can be used in other places as well by any hunter to help pick something off. Removing an ally from the board is already great, but you also get your two cards for that because you met your condition with it.

Who else draws 2 cards in one go and can do it multiple times if they want without losing tempo because they can also be answering something?

Compare to the conditional draw of IGG which does not help you meet the condition. Compare to conditional enhancer (which always needs extra thing on board to enhance, compared to HG which does not) and conditional producer of Backstab.

Clearly without the unconditional burden, Blood Frenzy would be hands down the best draw card in the game. Some people still think it might be. But it's not. It doesn't provide any answers to anything on the board and it only gives 1 card per turn and you can't play multiples in a single turn.


Side note: If someone wants to write up my article I've been meaning to write for a few years called "Threats, Answers, Producers and Enhancers" based off the above, that would be great. There's really not enough TCG theory shared here and I think actually it could be useful for discussions like this.

I think it all boils down to what criteria you take up. As you have recently confirmed you have even more come to notice that draw plays such a key role in SE. Players don t look on the cards through criteria you ve mentioned. I d say the way average player looks at draw cards is how effectively, how many, and on what moments they bring him cards to play. And this is where all the differences in opinion between you and players speaking here are born. You have nicely put forward your designing draw cards criteria here. But for average player Blood Frenzy just means twice many cards to play and sac since moment it s put on for a remote risk of dying faster (for which you ve got heal, should you need it), while Hunter Gambit means that you ll ONLY draw 1 card extra for 3 cc for 1 time, IF you manage to kill the ally and you got scarce other possibilities as hunter to heighten that number AND it works towards killing some ally quite effectively, which is very nice added perk ofc, even better it could gain me some tempo (but that is remote). For Hunter players who struggle with draw in general the draw part is of most concern. So the both criteria are VASTLY different. Player one is like "what tangibly I actually got in my hand" while your designer one accounts for many "potential" benefits and features on a theoretic scope of things, lol. Hope with this in mind you all communicate better.

About Gambit change, I don't yet know, I'll wait to see what you come up with (including maybe propositions for other class draw cards). I just wouldn't like to experience the OP-draw recycle Victor again, I still got bad memories from that - and they equal to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experienced by soldiers who have been in combat

[Gondorian]

This sums up what will happen perfectly.



With that logic nearly every class has to be completely redesigned.

Warriors - take away BF = awfull
Rogues - take away IGG/Ankle Breaker = awfull
Priests - take away Tidal Wave = awfull
Elementals - take away MC = awfull

If you take out key class cards you can make near every class way worse or completely useless immediately. Imo this logic doesnt hold up. The only exceptions are Wulven because their class cards are underwhelming to begin with (thats why no one plays them aside of Moon) and mages because they are very flexible with their builds.

So if you want to remove dependancy from a certain card for each individual class you will have to completely redisign the game.

I think you misunderstand.

I was just entertaining your assumption that they were unplayable without it (they are not, as I covered already) in an attempt to reason with you via a different route. I failed on that, obviously.