4Game

I'm a new player, and Syndicate is my favourite faction. I decided to invest my beginner resources in building a deck off of the starter Firesworn deck and so far I've been having a lot of fun. However, I've also come to find that Firesworn is in a very weird position with regards to power. In comparison to a lot of the popular decks ran today, Firesworn seems to be completely outclassed. I think I've played enough of the archetype (~125 games) to understand where it sits in relation to these other decks so I figured I'd give my thoughts in hopes of creating a discussion that reaches the devs so they can consider it when rolling out these final balance patches.

One of the major problems with Firesworn is that devotion severely cripples the archetype. Jacques: Grand Master gives veil and a coin for every firesworn you play, benefits that are really hard to pass up when the archetype relies on cards that allow for snowball like this. Ulrich uses devotion to boost a firesworn unit by 2, giving it extra survivability against removal which is all too common against firesworn's low base power engines like Eternal Fire Disciple, Firesworn Scribe and the 12 provision, 3 power core gold Hemmelfart. Junior is commonly a valuable control card for devotion decks, however the provision limitations of Firesworn mean that if you're running Junior, you can't run Helveed and you lose out on his swarm power.

This leads into the second problem with Firesworn, control. With regards to the current meta Firesworn is simply outclassed. NR Knights and ST Harmony are both highly greedy decks just like Firesworn, however they get more value from less golds and even more value from having the freedom to run heatwave and oneiromancy, or neutrals like spores or squirrel. Firesworn gets none of these options. It requires so many crucial high provision golds like Hemmelfart, Saint George, Jacques, Damnation, Vivaldi Bank, Dies Irae, Ulrich, Ferko, and more to even be competitive that you simply don't have room. This is even without considering devotion. In most Firesworn decks you can't even run any damaging crimes like Bloody Good Fun, Dip in the Pontar or consider a poison package. You could spend a turn removing a card, but then that's a turn you could've spent getting that Fallen Knight down so you could get a lot of value. This all means that Firesworn cannot respond to the insane snowball of popular decks at the moment, it doesn't really even have a removal option for a 6 power Sir Scratch-a-lot. The deck lacks important tutors for neutrals so even if you were to run heatwave you're not guaranteed to draw it or even play it against Loc Feinn, Temple of Melitele or Damsel in Distress. Running Oneiromancy is simply not an option, no matter which way you try to fit it in.

Firesworn also has no response to SK warriors/raid, MO thrive, frost and bleed, SY bounty, ST bombs/traps or anything to do with NG. Control bricks Firesworn effortlessly and you have no control back. If you draw poorly, you're standing at a 40-50% chance to win which is dependent on your opponent playing badly or also drawing poorly. For an archetype that relies on a consistent gameplan, the cards are often out of your hands.

Because of this Firesworn is so reliant on getting perfect opening hands, mulligans or card draws for those key golds that if you're unlucky, you're almost guaranteed to lose the first round if you red coin, and then you're behind for the rest of the game. Most good decks have a backup gameplan if you fail to draw key cards. For example, Harmony can win round one quite easily with Saskia, Cat Witchers, Matrons and a few elves that they can afford to save the relicts package for the winning round and slam 100+ points with ease. NG cards tend to have good value no matter what they are. Firesworn doesn't have this, and instead relies on playing a bunch of high value golds you would want to save, early on to try and win the first round and then play aggressive from there and hope your opponent doesn't have the cards they need to win the second round against a Hemmelfart/Saint George combo.

There's a bunch of other smaller issues that I won't really touch on, like how Firesworn has several dead cards that are completely outclassed by other Firesworn cards. Eternal Fire Priest vs Fallen Knight and Keeper of the Flame vs Temple Guard are a few good examples.

TL;DR Firesworn suffers from a sluggish, clunky playstyle restricted by devotion, has barely any control or removal options and relies too much on lucky draws and playing high value golds too early.

Firesworn feels like an archetype that used to be very powerful, but was balanced out by its limitations. Now it feels like the archetype has been sunsetted by decks that can do its job better and have far more tools available to them than Firesworn offers. I love that the community is rallying for Gwentfinitiy, offering balance suggestions and card reworks however I feel that since Syndicate is the least played faction (I'm at rank 12 and I've only played against one other SY player), this faction will get overlooked and then it will be too late. Power and provision changes aren't enough. I don't think the archetype needs insane buffs, but maybe some golds or neglected bronzes should be reworked to include some control options. An added layer of complexity to the archetype with a risk/reward aspect to tokens would be really fun, where you can keep them for points or sacrifice them to gain extra effects. This could make firesworn unique among other swarm archetypes, For example a change to temple guard that consumes a firesworn token or two to lock an enemy?

Thanks for reading. Any criticisms of my thoughts or solutions to my gripes would be really appreciated.