Hunters gambit change

[Gondorian]

too weak for 2cc. you turned it into a cantrip (which unfortunately is a rogue thing and dont want to mess up flavor). so you replace the card and only do 1 health damage. if it was 1cc, i would think its ok, but not 2cc.. would be better to just remove the exile and say sorry to victor.

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.

[tolerance]

If you’re going to reduce to draw 1 card, then i would suggest reduce its cost to 1cc, so
1cc, -1 health, draw 1 card, no exile

Otherwise current state seems ok

[AmberFade]

As for other hunters, what draw did they have before Hunter's Gambit? Were they all dead in the water? Heck no. Banebow was decent and Baduruu would have been propelled up by his Emore Crossbow anyway.

Baduruu obv doesnt care too much about the HP reduction, however the limitation of draw would hurt him aswell. New gambit was primarely huge for allied Gwen and Banebow. Im pretty sure Gwen will be dead in the water if you revert the Gambit change for sure (except her NPE stall version ofc), since new Gambit helped her alot in the early stages of the game aswell as helping her killing allies with weapon and was one of the major reasons she moved from a trollhero on par with Logan and Ter Adun to a part of competitive meta.

Overall new Gambit is in a good place. I would consider introducing a new card for Victor he can cycle and let current Gambit alone since it is a good thing for other hunters.

[Gondorian]

Overall new Gambit is in a good place. I would consider introducing a new card for Victor he can cycle and let current Gambit alone since it is a good thing for other hunters.

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.

[AmberFade]

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.

The thing is you either have an undercosted overpowered draw for Hunters or this class is done, that is a fundamental design flaw of the hunter class. Same as Warriors need their undercosted and overpowered draw that is BF. Unlike all other strong classes (if we exclude mages) Hunters and Wuvlen dont have a proper draw engine like BF/IGG/Chalice. If you want to take a look at what will happen to Hunters without strong draw of Gambit you can look over to Wulven that has 1 hero viable since for ever due to overpowered Ability.

Hunters and Wulven have WotF as the only card that could serve as a draw engine, that card is easily the worst engine around tho. Not only is it as expensive, its easily destroyed by simply attacking into or any weapon destruction card except LLL it and requires for your own stuff to die to actually draw.

If you nerf Gambit you gotta have smth taking its place (and draw 1 card is straight garbage, I would throw gambit out of all my non Victor hunter decks immediately), it was already not the best draw around but was usefull because it was a multipurpose card.

[H1TACH1]

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.

I fully disagree with this change.
Gambit is the only good draw engine of the hunters. Why do you want to kill the already poor draw options of this class?
What are the others tools at disposal? All the tools need a creature to trigger the draw engine. Wotf, sac lamb, treasured heirloom. Making it a cantrip you send to trash all the other hunters except than Victor.

As already Amberface said, karash was not killed by gambit, but by feasterling.

And about "overpowered and undercosted card draw"... what do you think about Blood Frenzy, IGG and Glass Chalice of Knowing?
Aren't these overpowered and undercosted cards?
They stay on the field and continue to help your draw every turn (in the most of the case you draw an extra card each turn). Gambit is one shot (and you have to kill the target)!

With the poor quality of the Hunter's draw engine, in media in each match with a 40 cards deck, you could play probably 2 gambit. A total of 4 cards. With the card I previously mentioned you can draw +4 cards in the next 4 turns.
So you still think Gambit is more OP than the others? Ok, probably we have a different point of view about what is OP

[Gondorian]

The thing is you either have an undercosted overpowered draw for Hunters or this class is done, that is a fundamental design flaw of the hunter class.

I don't know how long you've played the game for, but there was a time before Shattered Fates came out.

None of the 4 hunters that existed before SF were tier 3. I think Banebow was the top (tier 1.5) then Baduruu (tier 2) then Gwen and Victor (tier 2.5).

All, apart from Banebow, suffered due to not having cards available to make the best use of their abilities (or lacking good ways to deal with their Achilles Heels).

So along came Hunter's Gambit (Victor, to have something to recycle and get that final 1HP off whoever he targeted), Emore Crossbow (Baduruu, to just be a badass) and Weevil-tipped Crossbow (Gwen, to get over her huge weakness against armor). If those 3 cards were just added to DP direct without anything else from SF, I think all 3 would be at tier 1.5 or higher.

Based on that, I categorically refute the idea that they are fundamentally flawed in design.

[Gondorian]

And about "overpowered and undercosted card draw"... what do you think about Blood Frenzy, IGG and Glass Chalice of Knowing?
Aren't these overpowered and undercosted cards?
They stay on the field and continue to help your draw every turn (in the most of the case you draw an extra card each turn). Gambit is one shot (and you have to kill the target)!

No, they aren't overpowered or undercosted. Gambit is both card draw and tempo play with the -1HP/-2HP. You can play more than one in a turn as well.

BF costs 1 health per turn and only even starts giving cards on T4 and it's only 1 card per turn.

IGG costs 4cc (huge tempo loss) and can be easily destroyed before you have any value from it. You have to work hard for your draw and IGG does not help at all with killing allies or destroying items.

Glass Chalice uses up valuable SE and only gives one card at a time for 2SE.

Hunter's Gambit is card draw and an answer all in one, which is a big difference. If there was no HP modifier then it would be like a worse Hit List, but it would also not be the card Victor needed to take that last 1HP off an ally he had used ability on.

If Hunter need other better draw then we can do that. I prefer it to leaving OP and undercosted draw in their class pool.

[AmberFade]

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. Sure hunters compensate it with strong abilities but that alone wont cut it against modern tier 1 decks any longer. Most of them either have strong draw themself or are based around throwing out fatties all day long.

As H1tachi already explained Gambit is supbar draw compared to the likes of IGG and BF already. Making it even worse and expecting the classes to be just fine wont work. Also since we are talking about history we should take a look at where all those hunters were before the Gambit change rolled it.

Banebow was struggling, Gwen was nowhere to be seen apart of the casual stall player and the only popular hunters were Victor and Baduruu(since he doesnt care about the -HP as I explained). Thats where we are headed again if you make a cantrip out of it. Or even worse since it actually hurts Baduruu too.

[Inevitable]

No, they aren't overpowered or undercosted. Gambit is both card draw and tempo play with the -1HP/-2HP. You can play more than one in a turn as well.

BF costs 1 health per turn and only even starts giving cards on T4 and it's only 1 card per turn.

IGG costs 4cc (huge tempo loss) and can be easily destroyed before you have any value from it. You have to work hard for your draw and IGG does not help at all with killing allies or destroying items.

Glass Chalice uses up valuable SE and only gives one card at a time for 2SE.

Hunter's Gambit is card draw and an answer all in one, which is a big difference. If there was no HP modifier then it would be like a worse Hit List, but it would also not be the card Victor needed to take that last 1HP off an ally he had used ability on.

If Hunter need other better draw then we can do that. I prefer it to leaving OP and undercosted draw in their class pool.

Gambit is the only reason why anyone would pick a hunter in the first place. It doesnt even draw anything if no ally is played (unlike hit list which can trigger by killing your own allies). I have won many games against hunters by simply not allowing them to use gambits without resorting to stall or massive control.

Take away gambit, what does that leave hunters? Bad draw options, no class specific ID. Its a shame the card isnt printed because cards like soul reaper and anklebreaker are never going to be adressed when they are more OP than this one.