Encumbrance is pretty harsh and i mostly like it that way, but i thought of an idea that might make it a little better - discard a move card to reduce encumbrance by 1 for 1 turn. The discarded card does nothing but make the next move you play a little better.
There are plenty of ways to deal with encumbrance if you want to get rid of it, but you have to build you deck around it. I think adding some other way that doesn't take any forethought would be bad. High value move cards 3+ ie not being a dwarf or takeing some good boots. Purge Attach 3 cards to the affected character.
I would actually like to see weapons available that can cause encumberance (maybe only 1 enc though). Something like the nets you see in the campaign. I wish it wasn't just limited to mages.
I consider those soft counters - you're having to spend time and resources just to nullify the enemy effect. This is a problem when each frost mage can pack 12+ encumber cards in his deck - you will run out of purges and sprints before he runs out of frost jolts. There is, however, one hard counter that I'm aware of: Arrogant Armor. Alternatively, you can try to stay out of line of sight of the mage, but this is hugely map dependent.
What about shields that provide magic blocks? Or, for a little more fun, magic reflects? No one card would be enough, but it seems like you could build a dwarf fighter/priest so he had some arrogant armor, magic blocks, and a couple high move cards. Depending on your specific items I'd think you could end up with 6+ cards to fight encumbrance.
I've used the Holtzman Shield on my dwarf fighter - it would be nice if missile block let me draw a card on a successful block, you'd also need Quick Reactions to make your defensive set-up a little more proactive. I haven't found a magic reflect shield yet myself, however Duck fits the bill for dwarves at least - punish enemy magic attacks by turning them into card advantage.
There are certainly ways of dealing with encumbrance, but that tends to make your team pretty specific. If you load for encumbrance avoidance and run into another melee team it's a serious disadvantage. That gets into the old rock-paper-scissors model, but it would be nice to avoid falling into the trap of having low number of viable builds for high-ranked competition. It's more fun to know that you have a chance against any well-built deck and any well-built and well-played deck has a chance against you. I think that's precisely why the discard idea has merit - it's a very very weak counter but also does not require any additional effort in building your team.
Huh . . . idea collision: Lots of people are talking about Encumber. Also about "Encumber/Whirlwind" style builds, or anything that ruins enemy positioning. Well, like everyone else on this forum, I once posted some ideas for new cards. I thought I remembered "adding more cards that deal with attachments" in there, so I looked it up. What do you know? Everything I thought would "really open up strategic decisions" is a counter to "Encumber/Whirlwind" style builds: What if you just plain could discard attachments as part of your Move card? (And the anti-Whirlwind stuff is just a related discussion.)
I think a move that also discarded attachments would be too powerful unless it was only attached to something weak like a shuffle. You don't want to nerf encumbrance to uselessness or make the anti-encumbrance cards a must-have.
Oh, I meant literally all attachments: not just enemy ones. Then you wouldn't want to use the card too much in any build with a lot of Frenzy. And even if otherwise: sure, a Move 1. No disagreement. I just think that a proper application of anti-attachment effects would address your concern. It's basically what you wanted in the first place, just without adding another rule to an already-complicated game. You likewise could add cards that, specifically, reduce Encumber by 1 or 2, like you suggested. And, again, without adding more code.
