About Istred

Let’s compare it with Maxii, which I know it’s not exactly the same but have similar purposes, both are meant to add consistency. The neutral card plays as a 6 for 5 on deploy, shows you the exact order of your deck and, in case you don’t like it, allows you to shuffle and dodge a brick.

The faction card plays as a 6 for 7, and for every turn that you let it tick, lets you draw a card. It adds some sort of carryover, but it’s only valuable as long as it draws something you want to play and you are not forced to mulligan it. I say this because the longer you let it tick, the awkwardness of the mulligans increases. It’s very probable that you already have cards in hand that you don’t want to play or mulligan away since they are out of AA reach, so, even when it’s nice to buff some cards, you will need to mulligan them and maybe won't see again. Sometimes, you don’t even want to see them, after all, it’s random and the chances of drawing 4p cards are high.

I’ve been experimenting with it and yes, it adds a bit of consistency, but, at what price? Most of the times you don’t get more than a couple of points and ends up playing as an 8 for 7, which is terrible. Consistency wise, it’s far away from solving the problem of having key cards at the bottom. Now, do I think it’s bad design? No, I really believe it’s a cool card, an original mechanic that forces you to think ahead (should I hold or click? What cards do I mulligan back?). But it is stupidly expensive, like, it needs a 2 point buff to be considered including. CDPR needs to take a look on a lot of 6-8p cards because there’s a lot of cool mechanics that don’t see play because they play way off the curve.

TLDR: Another card incredibly bad balanced.