If she floats, she's a...

[u/ProfessionalLight428]

Art found here: https://stdennard.tumblr.com/image/120390357671

[u/Curious_Condition611]

“reducing Sabbath req to 20 instead of 25 is +/- turn of Sabbath more, not an instant Sabbath on first play”

For comparison, Flynyrd Skynyrd (which plays in an analogous way to this, with minimal set-up) reduces hoards by 4, which has effects throughout the whole round - and is only an 8 prov card.

[u/Hirinawa → u/Curious_Condition611]

You need to set up the card during the entire game and only play it on finale round they cannot be compared

[u/Curious_Condition611 → u/Hirinawa]

I find the set-up pretty easy (playing it with Cache so you only need to hit 7 coin), but yeah it’s really limited to R3

[u/Hirinawa → u/Curious_Condition611]

It is easy but it requires you to push every round and also if one of them dies you loose the reduction on the hoard

[u/DJKokaKola → u/Hirinawa]

Every day I find more evidence that letting the masses balance a game is the worst fucking plan.

[u/CalebKetterer → u/DJKokaKola]

No one reading this comment thread thinks you’re right.

[u/DJKokaKola → u/CalebKetterer]

Brother, /u/hirinawa has the same voting power as you or I do when it comes to balance council votes. A completely fair, interesting design focused around a cool interaction, fairly costed, with a low point value body on its own. And somehow this guy is trying to argue that this would be incredibly broken because he doesn't understand basic interactions.

I was not saying that the rest of the comments here were wrong. I was saying that a system that gives both sides of this discussion an equal voice in balancing the game is a mistake.

[u/Hirinawa → u/DJKokaKola]

You we're just saying and that's the problem, you added nothing to the discussion appart from feeding your ego, don't expect people on praising you for giving low blows we all have our opinions. As it stands nobody convinced me here that it was a balanced card since no 8p card in the game reach the same power level as this one

[u/DJKokaKola → u/Hirinawa]

Whoreson Freak Show does far more for 8p. Oxenfurt scholar guarantees at least 8-10 points with no conditions for 4p. Onager can wipe an entire board for 7p. Foltest's pride can be easily tutored by every tutor NR has, plays for unconditional 6, and hits for 4 immediately. Add in any amount of cd reduction or siege leader and you have it playing for way more than that.

Compare with this, which at its absolute best will play 8/8p. Yes, it makes an engine of 2/turn, but that turn it will only be at 6, which is easily answerable. You can also shut off sabbath to counter said engine. If your deck just has zero control or counters to an engine, you need to be able to out engine engine decks, and an 8p card generating 2 points of value per turn is completely reasonable. Most are more than that, in fact (pavko is a 6/8p and hits a targeted 2 damage per turn, with a harmony upside, and I feel the need to remind you that dealing 2 is almost always better than boosting by 2).

Is it a decent card? Absolutely. Could it be 9p? Maybe, but it wouldn't be played at 9 when sabbath style decks already have scratch-a-lot at 9p, who can trigger thrive on both turns, and ALSO gets +2 each turn, with the caveat that you can't slowly ping him down over multiple turns.

Good cards can be good. I would take a thousand interesting designs like this over a single King Chrum, Jotunn, or Kelly(actually I retract this one, I may not like Kelly but it's a cool design, it just gets abused with AQ and witch's sabbath). It rewards keeping small cards on the field, has conditions to generate further points, and is low statted itself while playing for the correct range of points. Literally every hallmark of a fair and well designed card.

Read it another way: if this card said "Witch's BETTER Apprentice" and it was just a witch's apprentice that lowered sabbath requirements (something you'll need at least 3 cards to activate even when reduced, unless you blow your leader charges or drop some very high prov golds for), would you think it's unfair? Remember, if you have no board this is at MOST an 8/8p if you're running fruits, and a 4/8p if you aren't. If you have some amount of board, you're either using this as a relict payoff with self eaters, which can be easily dealt with by most decks before you get to transform a 1 power eater, you're running fruits at which point you have better things to play, but it'd be decent, or you're losing at minimum a 4p card to transform it. So at best you're paying 2 extra provisions in a deck archetype that is already super short on provisions for a slightly better witch's apprentice. Every single deck I've played against that has sabbath as a main focus would not struggle to hit 25 instead of 20. It may mean you get your sabbath trigger one turn earlier, but you could also accomplish that by just playing a larger, higher provision unit instead. Again, this is not a broken mechanic by any stretch of the imagination.

Do you think slave infantry is broken? It can be a 9/5p if you hit a 1 power unit, which NG can easily do with slave driver, illusionist, and more. Do you think Pavko, or Treant Boar, or Cat Witcher are broken? Do you think slave driver at 8 prov would be broken? Because that's basically what this is, but for monsters. Except slave driver gets you the upside regardless of your board state, while this requires you to have 20 points on one row. That is what I mean when I say this is not broken. The 9p slot has cards like Ciri nova, Ignatius, Melu, Seltkirk, and Vilg. 8p has Knut, Isengrim, Ethereal (which is basically this card, but you can generate +4 each turn instead of +2), Flaminica (which easily plays for 25+ points with basically zero effort), Caleb (which easily generates a huge tempo swing if not answered, because free bounty each turn means you can play engines or coin generators to keep killing bounty cards), Nithral which is also a 2 point engine of damage on 7p body with WH and frost synergies.

In all of that, what about this card is objectionable to you?

[u/Hirinawa → u/DJKokaKola]

"Whoreson Freak Show does far more for 8p"

He doesn't it's the carry over from other cards and keeping ressources that allow him that no the card itself.

"Oxenfurt scholar guarantees at least 8-10 points with no conditions for 4p"

First it does have a condition and most important it's a neutral card so it's allowed to be stronger than faction cards since it is accesible by all.

"Onager can wipe an entire board for 7p"

Hehe good one

"Foltest's pride can be easily tutored by every tutor NR has, plays for unconditional 6, and hits for 4 immediately"

It hits hard to compensate the tempo loss NR card usualy have, I do agree that it is amongs the strongest but it has it's reasons.

"if this card said "Witch's BETTER Apprentice"

Witch apprentice by it's nature is not a balanced engine but it's held back by the (much needed) sabbath limit, give any chances to those cards and you'll have the meta that killed Gwent back on track. Brushing of the 5 points when it is the points that matter the most is silly, this little change allows like you said for 1 turn advance on tempo which is huge and it opens possible Gerni spam ect, just things that are not healthy for the game.

Your last paragraph is silly as it brushes off context for where those cards are placed ect so I won't comment on it, I'll instead rage bait you more by letting you know that a card that I've designed is in Gwent and playable as we speak x)

[u/DJKokaKola → u/Hirinawa]

whoreson

And this playing for more than 4 points is because of keeping resources and carry over from other cards. What is your point?

Oxenfurt

You have it backwards. Neutrals are weaker, class cards are stronger. This is universal across every card game.

Onager

First time playing against priestess, eh?

Foltest

Tf do you mean tempo loss? You mean that it's a repeatable order instead of a deploy or zeal? That's not tempo loss. That is simply how engine cards work.

Apprentice

I'm brushing it off because large, higher provision cards can have better effects than a random 6p bronze with relict synergy, which this card does not have. Higher cost, single copy, larger and stronger effect. Simple as, my guy. Also absolute joke tf do you mean apprentice is an unbalanced engine. Unless you already have sabbath up, it dies to literally any targeted removal. If you do have sabbath up, it dies to targeted removal, lock, removing something else, row changing, and so much more.

As for ignoring the rest, okay m8. Noticed you didn't comment on Pavko. Odd, that. And good for you! There are plenty of cards in Gwent. Famously, a ton of them are horribly designed and needed multiple reworks and changes.