Wall of text about WW and WWE

So I wanted to take a look at Whirlwind and Whirlwind Enemies and talk about why I feel that neither is overpowered and talk about some strategies that can be used to counter both of them.

First, let’s talk about the times when it is appropriate to cast either of these spells. During round one it can be appropriate to cast Whirlwind Enemies if your opponent has used all visible movement cards and you are sitting on a decent amount of movement still. This is still a very risky move, and I would not recommend casting it unless you have a way out of the worst case scenario (i.e. their warrior is sitting on top of your wizard and their wizard has line of sight to all squares with your characters on it).

The key to beating the round one Whirlwind Enemies is to save your movement if you think it is about to happen.

The other common use for Whirlwind Enemies is to protect victory points. Getting an early kill and trying to outlast the opponent is a valid strategy that can be hard to beat, but again it all comes down to having enough movement to recover. Obviously, this is not always an option and sometimes you will lose to a wizard sitting on a square. Losses happen, moving on.

Whirlwind is more of an emergency button when your team is in a bad position. It is definitely not as powerful as Whirlwind Enemies but still able to turn a game around. There is less strategy involved in coming back from a Whirlwind, just learn to ride the winds and reevaluate your position.

Now, let’s talk about some of the other positioning options available to wizards. Winds of War is by far the best option for positioning characters. This gives you the option to move two characters up to three squares in any direction (arguably more powerful than either Whirlwind or Whirlwind Enemies, but that is a discussion for another time), but it is still extremely easy for an opposing character to recover from. Improved Telekinesis is a decent positioning spell but significantly worse than Winds of War and definitely worse than Whirlwind or Whirlwind Enemies. Every race (dwarf, human, elf… I don’t want to get into SP races) in the game is able to close the gap created by Improved Telekinesis with a racial move card, not to mention that one of the most common (if not the most common) warrior attacks, Vicious Thrust. Telekinesis is only marginally more powerful than Force Bolt and probably less powerful than Force Blast so I am not even going to evaluate its role in a positioning wizard build.

If a warrior is able to get to a wizard and the wizard is not able to create distance quickly then you are going to have a bad time. This is why Whirlwind and Whirlwind Enemies fill a much needed role in a wizard’s arsenal. Of course, there are other cards that could get you out of this situation and wizards are a very versatile class.


I guess the whole point of this is without some sort of mass disruption like Whirlwind and Whirlwind Enemies wizards become a lot easier to get to and kill. Cards such as Sprint, Team become much, much stronger if these cards are removed from the game or changed significantly.

 

I totally agree Heretiick. As you all know i play 3 warriors. WW and WWE should be the worst possible spells for me to face, considering i have to get up close and personal for my attacks to work.

However as you also know, I very rarely have problems when i face these spells. That is because I have build my deck specfically to combat encumbrance and movement spells. If i can do it so easily, then there can be no argument that these spells are OP, afterall I am running the worst possible team.

As I always say 'When you lose in chess you evaluate your strategy. When you lose in a computer game, you evaluate the mechanics.' If something has numerous counters it can never be considered OP.

 

A huge wall of text to counter a single bronze card?

You prove why the card is broken.

 

Telekinesis is a bronze card. It has a range of 2 and a slide of 2.

Please write 600 words on how to counter this.

 

Kind of a dick-ish way to say it, but i mostly agree. Whirlwind is fine. Whirlwind enemies should just be a mass Maze, not anywhere on the map.

 

I think it's been said before, but cards like these are bad not because they're overpowered (though they might be) but because they're counter to how the game is supposed to work.

If you spend a few rounds jockying for position, outwitting your opponent and carefully setting yourself up for victory, they shouldn't just be able to push a reset button and start over. These are fine monster cards, I wouldn't advocate for removing them from the game entirely, but they shouldn't be player cards.

 

You fail to mention the way to use WWE in which you gain the most advantage and have the least chance of what you consider a downside.

Any time your opponent has used at least some of their moves, and your team has a way to move each of the characters at least once, has a lot of attacks and are bunched together (as you have planned since you are running a fair number of WWEs -- say 9 on one character) is an 'appropriate' time to cast WWE. If what you consider the worst case scenario happens you're happy about it because you have the option of moving your wizard away from their warrior and protecting it with your other characters and/or just kill the warrior where they stand using all three of your characters' attacks. Depending on the opponent's team composition you may not even care if your wizard dies because if you can kill their warrior then you'll have the upper hand.

Small note: Should a warrior use Immovable early, it makes it very safe to cast WWE and attempt to kill one of the other characters.

Holding multiple WWEs (when you are running 9) is not difficult. If you don't like the way the first one went you can simply allow the opponent to adjust, then cast another one. Used in this way you don't have to worry about any tactics the enemy is trying to use. Often you can wait till the opponent gets on the victory conditions then WWE and move on them yourself. Whenever they get close, WWE again...and again...and again next turn... I often win against Mom without ever having to play a single attack due to this, and opponents just quit.

Any time you'd like to play against my WWE deck I'd be happy to demonstrate how it removes tactical play from the game.

 

your comment doesn't remotely cover why WWE is broken.

WWE breaks any sort of optimal formation/positioning you have. Positioning that might have taken you 2-3 move cards to get into. You had line of sight? Now you don't. You were hiding? Now you aren't. You were conoring someone? Now you aren't. A lot of times, still having a move card is worthless.

Next up is with synergy. Lots of enemy makeup requires the group to act together and cover each other's shortfalls. Randomly sending people flying across the map breaks that. While your characters are still in a group, the enemies are separated. If a lone character ends up being close by while his team mates are absent, they are screwed. Worse case scenario, first turn WWE and your mage lands in front of their party. 1 turn later and its 2 v 3. WWE rips your party apart and has a good chance of stranding one of them. TK isn't remotely as disruptive.

Its devastating because its just too good at creating the opportunity for a gang up.

A well made warrior team could weather getting split up relatively well. Many other team compositions can't. Having move cards isn't a defence, if you can have it, you opponent can too.

Often times the turning point comes in a burst as opposed to attrition.

 

It is overpowered sir.

Lets face it, Cardhunter is a tactical game. And a single card that disrupts almost everything you achieved so far (because positioning is like 50% of victory, if not more) is certainly overpowered.

In my opinion (and I am total newbie so it shouldn't be taken seriously) WW and WWE should be either a trait but that would be a bit of overkill-nerf OR as Mutak mentioned:

 

Here we go again on WW and WWE.... I don't think they're particularly OP; they just detract from the fun of the game.

 

But it's not. The cards themselves are not that strong. The issue is that they destroy the foundation of what the game is based on and the aspect that the majority of the player (I assume) have been drawn to the game for; tactics.

 

They are. WWE is a game changing card, and theres no real counter to it. Can't you see it?

Hey! Enemy outmanouvered me and now my wizard is blocked in the corner... I guess I just push this one button and everything my enemy worked on goes to ****.

If that isn't OP then what is?

 

True!

False. Higher maneuverability builds, Immovable traits, and even simple blocks... There are ways to 'counter it' by most people's design sense.

Then, "Oh crap their warrior blocked it and the rest of their team is around me now too... oops."

When you are using an effect you control the outcome of which will always give you a benefit over all other cards and tactics.

 

Pretty sure you have decided to disagree with everything that I say. Moving on.

 

My point exactly, TK is not nearly disruptive enough to be worthwhile.

I run 2 wizards and 1 warrior and have survived many Whirlwind Enemies.

How is this a bad thing? Giving players multiple play styles to chose from seems like the opposite of a bad thing to me. If every game came down to a war of attrition then I would probably not play.

You will notice that about half of the wall of text is about other positioning cards and how they just don't cut it. I would get upset by your snarky comments but, since I only can assume that you didn't read it, I will let it go.

I am going to laugh as soon as Whirlwind and Whirlwind Enemies get nerfed and everyone starts screaming, "Sprint, Team is so OP. Two warriors on top of my wizard round one! NO FUN! NO FUN!"

 

That's pretty much the case already isn't it? Seems like you're suggesting (consciously or not) that having WW and WWE is a counter to that, thus everyone should be using it or we would all get hit by Sprint, Team.

For the sake of discussion let's assume you're right. That illustrates two problems, first that there is a single card that everyone has to counter and secondly that there is a single card that everyone should be running to counter it.

Perhaps they are two sides to the same coin. On one side too much movement that you are forced to have a response to it and random movement to remove your opponents movement/tactical advantage. If one side is to be played, the other has to be since a reliable counter to WWE is Sprint, Team and vice versa. I'd argue that the coin, then, is the problem and removing both of them leaves the game in roughly the same state without 2 problems which are each a forcing mechanism for the other.

The inclusion/exclusion/tuning of one possibly out of balance card should not be controlled by the balance of another. If changes to this card increases the power of another to a point that it is out of balance with the current card pool then it can be tuned accordingly based on it's merits and weaknesses. Cascading changes are rampant when dealing with balance issues, they should not preclude change being made.

 

We should really cover new ground if we're going to bicker over the same argument, an argument I've seen in about four threads now.

There are those that think no changes are needed. There are those that take that a step further, and resent posts advocating for nerfs for a number of reasons. I don't really get that point of view but it's clearly out there. There are those that think WWE is anti-fun, that it goes against the spirit of the game, what have you... what really matters is whether Whirlwind cards should be changed and how. There are a dozen ways to change its impact on the competitive environment without removing it entirely, for example I think it should be rarer on items and more expensive in terms of tokens.

The main reason I think WWE is simply too available is that it does have a place in the meta of encumbers, step attacks, lava terrain, mobile warriors and spammy priests, but as it stands it's so much easier to fill your deck with WWEs than the other key cards it interacts with and is balanced against. When WWE is an answer to and is answered by cards like Team Run, Sprint, Team!, Freeze, Winds Of War, etc. isn't the obvious answer to make it just as difficult to acquire and fill a deck with as those cards?

 

Ok this is going sound left of field but MAYBE a way to stop many OP cards would be to make then Unique or I have no word to work here but Limit them to two in a deck.
I know this will upset many people and you could get around the Limit by having two of the class required to use the OP cards.
Like I said left of field.

 

Sprint, Team! is limited to two per deck, and you have to be a human warrior to get that many. The problem is that any wizard can have 9 WWE and 4 WW.

 

Let's see, Winds Of War a character can get at least 12 of,
can get 18 Encumber 2 or higher cards on a single character as well,
and a human warrior can get 2x Sprint, Team, 1x Retreat, 1x Team Run, and whatever they can get that's decent on boots (I only have Team Shift myself) which is a fair amount of movement considering each of those push two other characters.

So it looks like your obvious answer is obsolete.