MArcomage

Has anyone else felt this? I don't see as many around as I used to, but there are definitely still some problems with the key word even though it has the chance to sap resources. The biggest problems I think are probably Death Wave which can deal a lot of damage considering the cost and rarity (common) and isn't even an undead card so it isn't subject to the key word's drawback. Other problem cards are Banshee (extremely high damage considering the cost), Crypt (gets you a powerful undead card), Eternal Guardian (makes attacking back that much harder for such a low price, and Vampire Countess (makes the draw back of undead almost meaningless in most games and allows you to power out some of the really strong ones).

It might be my personal play style and my deck choices, but I find that there is still very little you can do against a good undead opening hand. I personally don't have much fun playing against them especially hands where they have a good number of undead plus Countess to put the hand on steroids.

I think the big problem is that there are so many decent undead cards so that it is easy to get large numbers of them in your hand and destroy your opponent with cards like Death Wave, Banshee, Corpse Behemoth.

This is just my personal experience, so please tell me if you feel otherwise.

EDIT: I added unliving as I feel it is another keyword that is perhaps more widely abused thanks to cards like Mud and Rock Elemental, Crystal Golem (my least favorite new card, it's common for christ sake!), reuse the rubble, and the ease of accumulating bricks and quarry all along with a positive keyword proc.

Tell me what you think, suggestions for possible fixes for some cards if you agree perhaps. If you think I'm just complaining, tell me that too :)

if the opponent has a strong opening hand, it doesn't really matter what deck he uses. you most likely will loose.
as an example: one of my opponents once had in his first 10 cards like 3 rock elementals, 4 mud elementals some brick drawers and unliving fillers. there was no way i could have won.

but i agree with you, if you dont have cleansening or any other holy card in your deck you will have a lot of trouble trying to beat an undead deck. - but if you have cleansening, it is just the other way around.
that is the risk with undead. it is very strong but has a just as strong weakness.

all in all i think it is quite good unbalanced i wouldn't change much in this matter.

From the perspective of someone who still occasionally plays an Undead deck, the difficulty lies in not having the stock to play anything of substance right at the beginning. Gems are always a hindrance, and any attack from the opponent that reduces gems completely incapacitates an Undead hand. If you can survive several turns and increase your Magic, you gain advantage, but the first several turns leave you exposed to direct attacks and gem reductions for a quick, unrecoverable loss.

I'm of the general opinion that cards like cleansing are absolutely useless because of the lack of a sideboard system in this game. I've never seen anyone once use cleansing. As that's the case, the only chance of one getting played is if they play wind and happen to get one, and that is never going to happen more than once in game statistically speaking, so I don't think that using that as an example is a great argument.

As to your other point, I think Unliving is the keyword deck that needs toning down. Corrosion Cloud is a lot better than cleansing in my opinion because lots of decks use the odd Unliving card to do something with their bricks, (think Petrified Minitor, Stone Gargoyle, or Clay Golem in aggressive decks or any of the wall or tower ones in defensive decks) but is still very weak in fighting all out unliving decks as it is the high brick cost cards you want to grab, not the small filler cards. In fact I think that it's much better against aggressive decks using only a few high cost unliving cards as that's more likely to cripple their brick supply than it is to a dedicated unliving deck. The other infuriating thing is that sometimes you make them discard a stone archer only for it to be replaced by a mud elemental which somehow just doesn't seem right.

Either way, you have to acknowledge that the hoser cards for these decks aren't very effectively, either because they are so narrow that no one will put them in their deck as it will be a dead or nearly dead card in most games, or because it does not effective combat the decks that abuse the keyword it's meant hose.

EDIT: DPsycho does have a valid point, but I've alos seen undead decks come back from that sort of early gem attack through a single merchant and Vampire Countess. I don't disagree that the deck has weaknesses, but I still hold that they too are easy to overcome considering the power of the cards.

I don't think either undead or unliving are overpowered.

As to Crystal Golem being overpowered I think you should give it a try and see for yourself. It's the most expensive common (tied with magic lamp at 15 resources), most of the time you won't get the full effect and can expect to get maybe 4 attack and 12 wall for playing it if your deck is built for it. I'd say its balanced pretty well with its cost.

A half of keywords are overpowered? So go and get that deck, it should be a sure win %)

mmm i have an unliving and undead deck and it's powerfull only if you are lucky... like any other deck :P, the undead has a lot of problems with the gems and the unliving with their need of other unliving cards so they are good but they have their own risky points