4Game

Hey guys, I've been thinking a bit about Milva: Sharpshooter and I have concluded that she's too strong. I'm not coming at this from an emotional "my meme deck just got stomped by a smidgen of control." Rather, I've been thinking about what the card does and the role is serves. I've played Milva myself, and I've played against her. There's a good deal of both good and bad, as I'll explain.

Here's how I see it:

• Good: The card makes an old leader, Guerilla Tactics, playable, while also adding potency to old cards like Rock Barrage and Making a Bomb.

• Good: The card adds a substantial control element to a meta that would otherwise be quite greedy.

• Good: Milva allows removal of low-power units. Those fellas can be sneakily good if you're forced to yeet them with a full removal card.

• Good: Milva reduces your mulligans, costing maybe 1.5 mulligans per game. This is a reasonable downside for such a strong card.

• Bad: Guerilla Tactics is an inherently bad leader that has to be "rescued" by OP cards. At least, that's sure how it feels. Compare Guerilla Tactics to Inspired Zeal. The main difference is that IZ get's its value from various separate payoff cards: Raffard's Venegance, Seltkirk, Anseis, Dandelion and maybe Ildiko. Meanwhile, GT has a whopping total of 1 payoff card. Not healthy, in my opinion.

• Bad: Milva allows easy removal of units at 7 strength. Personally, I feel that the game should naturally make 7+ removal inherently difficult. Doing so should require tools like Bekker's Rockslide and Heatwave. AKA, gold cards. Alternatively, you could have a leader charge or an order ability from An Craite Raiders. But coming from a lone 5p bronze? No.

• Bad: Milva' raw point value is extremely high. How high? It's complicated, but probably in excess of 20 points.

Let's explore. Assume you have 3 leader charges, 2x MaB, 2x Rock Barrage. You probably miss one of these cards, so we'll say that her ability is triggered 6 times. She gives you 3 points every time you summon her, so 3*6 is 18. The last time she's summoned, she doesn't get shuffled, so +2. And finally, she's isn't played from hand, so you have to add 6 points to her value. (i.e Roach is effectively a 9-for-9) Total is now roughly 26 for 11.

However, she's not reaching 26 points in every game because you usually overdamage a couple times. Additionally, she synergizes with otherwise bad cards that have a substantial point debt. Rock Barrage has a 1-point debt, and GT has about a 6-point debt. Ciarran has a 1-point debt as well. You have to subtract that from her value, which is about 8 points depending on what you run.

But next we have to factor in her removal value, which is… insane. She's probably worth about 3 hard-removals, and remember that a hard removal is worth more than a lock. I'd say that she usually denies at least 10 points from the opponent, speaking conservatively.

So, she really is worth roughly 20+ points.

The fix:

I propose that Milva not damage the unit by 1 when summoned from deck.

This way, she adds 2 points whenever a unit is moved, not 3. The damage by 1 ability really belongs to another card, anyway: Dol Blathanna Sentry. This works very well with existing Scoia'tael cards, because we now have:

• Waylay or Circle of Life for 3 point removal. (Btw Circle needs a buff. Maybe 3 point handbuff?)

• Leader Charge or Dimeritium Bomb for 4 removal.

• Nature's Rebuke for 5 removal

• Rock Barrage or Making a Bomb for 6 point removal.

See how naturally beautiful this is? It's feel obvious to me that this is how she should be. Now, if you want 7+ removal, it's still there but you have to pay for it by using multiple leader charges or something.

Please share your thoughts below.