4Game

The current lockdown feels a bit awkward to me, mostly the operative spawning behavior. I have no mind for balance in this game, especially at higher levels of play since I'm a noob, but I have a couple of potential routes for Lockdown to make it more desirable and I'd love for people, especially at higher MMR, to give their opinions. Sorry in advance if I screwed up with the images; I can't preview my post =(

Here's the first potential change:

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https://preview.redd.it/2if1necqcep61.png?width=1550&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f7fd7cf06da07de95c867f3a879f97028d2ebe9

And here's an alternative:

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https://preview.redd.it/3g48jh5scep61.png?width=1550&format=png&auto=webp&s=e92e409bc6fe86d3acea3fc61b273c91127e0c72

If these are overpowered or underpowered, you can just buff/nerf them via # of deploys canceled (leader #1) or the number of charges (leader #2). You would have flexibility for use as well, i.e. either you use it early in the round and deny them their leader for its entirety (if you go first anyways), but the deploy cancel is more likely to be used on weaker bronzes; or you use it later in the round and potentially give them a better opportunity to use their leader but get a potentially much stronger deploy cancel. The alternative with charges allows for a little more flexibility (i.e., could get a powerful cancel in different rounds or just general reactivity if you strongly think a certain deploy card is about to be played) but also makes it harder to get an early leader disable if you have both charges (unless you're willing to brick a charge).

I think these design changes still match a "lockdown" theme, but I'm worried that this would be an op game finisher and that an early leader cancel would never be used over a late deploy cancel (I think it'd be more interesting with flexibility). Also, a minor problem might be that it's hard for the enemy to know when a charge is used and that its unit's deploy will be cancelled. Thoughts? Is this an interesting change? Is there enough room for the opponent to play around deploy cancel/leader disable? Or is it so crucial to play certain units at the end that this would be too powerful? Cancelling only one deploy seems way too weak, but cancelling three seems hugely op.