Like many of you I am dreading the eventual set rotation, not because I believe that set rotation is Satan’s handshake or that it will cause the sky to fall, but rather because of the loss of two cards from my arsenal. Sphere of Darkness and Gnasher.
When I first saw Maehv I had nearly zero interest in her, and didn’t think her playstyle would be particularly interesting. She was the last of the new Generals I unlocked, due mainly to the lack of a decent Abyssian deck on my part.
But after using her I have found I absolutely love her playstyle and have tried desperately to build a deck with her that is top-tier and is tailored to my playstyle and the things I enjoy most about her. I have come close, but frankly it feels like I’m building a Lego Death Star with a quarter of the pieces missing.
Which is why i am dreading the set rotation and the hit it represents to Maehv and others. This is why I want to know if you guys have any inkling as to what the devs have in mind when adding cards to the core set, whether from the Discord channels or elsewhere.
I can understand Sphere of Darkness, which is a cantrip, allows mana tile denial and pings for minions and artifacts all for 1 mana. It’s so good it makes it difficult to design anything remotely similar, like trying to design a cantrip for Vet resulted in the disastrous Burden of Knowledge vs First Wish.
Looking at the other cards that were moved from the Core Set, it seems the devs want to remove the sorts of cards that are basically auto-includes for any deck that doesn’t have a very strict gameplan, cards like Sunsteel Defender, Dioltas and the like. These cards are just such good all-rounders that any archetype that doesn’t need every card in it to be geared towards a specific strategy will use one of the above.
The Core Set is supposed to represent the basic building blocks for every faction, the foundation on which they would build, supplementing their decks with cards from the expansions for specific archetypes but often leaning heavily on the Core Set, which is why cards like Blood of Air have been moved to Core.
So I would like to know what kind of thought process goes into the cards that are moved to Core and whether the devs will likely take our suggestions into consideration on this matter. Cards like Gnasher are far from staples and are not auto-included in a wide range of decks, but alone they often perform a very important role in a single General’s playstyle, namely Maehv’s only source of competitive AoE. I think Gnasher’s addition to Core would be quite fair personally, as it brings Maehv closer to being truly viable and doesn’t inhibit CPG’s future card designs.
There will be more card like Gnasher in the future, cards that make Ilena or Shidai viable in a way that doesn’t pigeonhole them so harshly, and I would hope that the devs consider adding them to the Core roster so that even though they might not be consistently top-tier, each and every General has at least some foundation on which to build.
So what do you guys think? Is the core set fine as it is, or do you have any suggestions as to how the devs should consider what gets placed in Core and what does not? What kind of prerequisites should be put in place to ensure the Core Set is well structures, but not overly bloated?