[Suggestion] Frost magic rework - what if frost spells forced discard of movement cards instead?

@PorridgeGolem, I think you're point about balance coming last is a strong point (as long as the mechanics are not intrinsically imbalanced). Also, when I first started seeing encumber effects, I too thought they were ... unsatisfactory. In particular, it bothered me that dwarfs get completely locked down very easily. This bothered me because I like to think of dwarves as being somewhat slow moving, but hardy and reliable. It seems strange to me that dwarves would be the first ones halted by the cold.

Also, I agree that it's bizarre and unintuitive that push moves aren't effected by encumber. It's better that way for balance, but when a move is called Walk, Team I essentially expect the effects to be similar to Walk, with all the disadvantages of walk.

More recently I've gotten use to encumber and so it doesn't really bother me anymore. But that's not because I now think it's fine how it is, rather it's more that I haven't got any better ideas in mind for how the mechanics should be. I can imagine stuff like encumber decreasing movement as a fraction rather than by an direct number of steps - or perhaps encumber resulting in a maximum move-speed rather than decreasing all moves. But I'm not really convinced those would be better, and since changes like that would require significant re-balancing of the game and re-educating of existing players, I figure it's best to just wait until we have an idea that is more obviously an improvement.

 

Don't nerf encumber (or change it). Just give players more options for countering it and give wizards more options besides using it. Create a better meta and you will see a dramatic reduction in the number of players using these spells (or better, a greater diversity of players using other strategies). Right now wizards don't have a lot of reliable damage options that compete with a warrior's damage and warriors and priests don't have a lot of options for countering the encumber and the lava terrain. Give players these options and you will see greater diversity in deck design. (Nerfing != more fun. Greater diversity = more fun.)