4Game

Defender is a status that just a handful of cards possess, units with Defender prevent units in a row from being targeted manually from opponent abilities, the problem is that, these defenders are not equal in terms of power and ability to protect, for instance

• NG: Probably one of the weakest, beink easely destroyed by Morkvarg in the case of SK, Inspired Bloody Baron for NR and is suceptible to resets, it can work sometimes but is quite meh
• MO: Is plain, but for its simplicity is quite effective, a straightforward 7 power with 4 armor, the thing that breaks it is being resurrected along wiht other 2 (presumably high end engines) units, which makes a whole combo unanswerable, overall, a difficult-to-deal defender if not purified
• NR: Probably the hardest to kill, being "invulnerable" to a single mountain of damage because of its shield and, in top of that, with 2 armor, also, in the Faction with the most capacity to boost it again into unkillable range, purify highly needed against it
• SK: Another problematic one, not because its hard to kill (Well, it is if the berserk ability triggers for a couple of turns, so, the most difficult to kill if not destroyed in a single turn/instance of control) the problem is that it can be resurrected with ease by its faction, via Sigdrifa's Rite or Fucusya, being a pain in the ass for at least 2 rounds
• ST: The worst one, it has the 2 armor of SK but without any of its benefits, can't be resurrected and doesn't grant much protection, pretty mediocre overall
• SY: It's hard to evaluate, offers 2 very easy to kill defenders, but if they can be boosted the moment they spawn is the best

But the problem goes beyond the fact that the defenders are unequal, the problem is that defenders contribute to broken combos to go unanswered if the player can't deal with a Defender in time, without Defender the Triple Kitty deck would be at least beatable with a decent amount of control, SK greedy Sigvald self damage deck would need to play other win conditions instead of one giga chad Sigvald behind a resurrectable Defender, Defenders allow a player to ask their opponent "Can you deal with my Defender or I'm gonna be able to perform whatever combo I'm paying while you waste turns of combo development by instead trying to kill my defender" making a game just be decided on deckbuilding (do you have a purify/enough damage/heatwave and if you draw any of them or enough to deal with defender + the combo it's protecting) and 2 factions being the only ones to be able to replay it with "cheap" cards, Sabbath bringing back 3 high end cards and SK with many options.

I know how defenders offer a possibility to win to decks that otherwise would be helpless against strong control decks, but it might be a problem to keep, seeing the power of Answer or lose decks, more so if a deck has multiple Answer or lose cards