MArcomage

Undead has really fallen out of favor, and while I see them from time to time, playing Undead really, really sucks when you meet a Holy-deck. Now Holy is supposed to be good vs it, but I feel it's a bit too easy, so a change that I feel would even the score and add "more skill" to defeating the evil (in Bold):

If Holy in your hand > Purified Ashes in oppoents hand: Replace highest rarity Demonic or Undead card from opponent's hand of the same or lower rarity as the played card with Purified ashes.

Edit: Why not apply this to Burning as well? Burning in your hand > Searing Fire in opponents hand. Methinks this would be a nice change.

I don't think it would change much tbh.

I'm fine with having undead decks get heavily disrupted by holy decks, since not every matchup should be 50/50 and there should be some matches where you just try to run against a wall (e.g. with a tower- deck against a properly build contruction deck or with a titan deck against a burning one or elementalist...).
I don't see eitrher how this would change the holy vs undead matchup, since holy decks have their hand full of holy cards anyway. It would reduce the odds of other decks against undead decks, since they cannot splash holy cards to add some disruption into their deck.
Of course, the design of the keyword heavily desrupts the big haymakers of undead decks (corpse behemoth, undead shrine etc.) or the overall synergy of their cards, but i don't believe this justifies the change of the keyword.

The reason for this is that holy cards, because you can gain that easy tokens with them, can work as protection against the heavy synergy driven undead decks. So if you want to change that single matchup, you would need to remove the tools of other non-holy decks to fight undead decks.

And undead cards didn't suffered from that many nerfs in the past. (In fact, the holy deck was almost nerfed into oblivion)

I've been playing my Undead deck semi-regularly of late, and I haven't come up against many Holy players in that time. These things seem to come in waves, where if a lot of people started playing Undead again, it would prompt people to play Holy, which would then prompt people to play Keywordless and/or Zero-cost, which would prompt... etc. Leaving Holy as the option it is to disrupt Undead doesn't need any tweaking, in my opinion.

I also agree with other replies that the proposed change probably wouldn't have much effect in practice since Holy already favors/demands having several Holy in hand. Also, a good Undead deck is going to have Purifying fire included, if the Holy player doesn't place it into the opponent's hand themselves. If you really wanted to nerf the Holy effect (which, I will repeat, I don't think is necessary at this time), have it only target the opponent's cards that aren't neighboring a Holy card. That way, on the receiving end, having a Holy card or two sitting there grants protection to its neighbors.

OK I'll reiterate that this proposed change is to increase the "skill" required to utilize the keyword, not to nerf the overpowered Holy-keyword. Same goes for Burning, I just feel like it's too much of a "free effect", where you don't need to put any thought behind the token-triggering, and I want there to be as much "skill" as possible in the Arcomage-games.

I'd say Holy is in very strange spot right now. While keyword itself can be extremely powerful in certain situations, Holy cardset isn't as powerful as before. In fact, pure Holy deck makes no sense, because there is no Holy core at all.

Don't get me wrong, there are many great Holy cards, but the thing is, they're ALL great by itself and don't have a core idea anymore. When you build a deck with Wishing lagoon and Gateway, your idea is to build gems as fast as possible, and don't die in process. When you build a Frenzy deck, your idea is to attack all the time with fast, cheap and cost-effective cards, forcing your opponent to defend. And what idea can be in Holy deck, except «hey, let's trigger Holy keyword as many times as we can and hope that we'll meet Undead/Demonic deck»?

Once upon a time, when we could use Heresy to summon some Fanatics and then Death before dishonor to turn them into Zealots, Holy deck was completely overpowered, since there wasn't any limit to Zealot's attack. Zealot was, like, twice as cost-effective as Undead host. Then it was nerfed, as well as Holy defense — Crystal golem and Guardian angel. But then Holy lost reliability as well — Fanatic became Frenzy, and Death before dishonor turned into wall+ discarder. These changes buried Holy cardset, Fairy nerf was nothing more than a nail in its coffin.

Really, only 2 of 12 commons (Benediction and Cleansing), 2 of 14 uncommons (Fairy and Miracle) and 1 of 4 rares (Angel) need another Holy cards in hand, other cards work in non-Holy decks as good as in Holy ones, if not better. Look at Alastor flame of heavens, White shrine and Avenging angel, for example.
Supportive cards? One common 1G Holy summoner with up to 5 resources plus one unreliable uncommon defense. Nothing worthy.

I don't know what does Mojko think about role of Holy in game, but IMO it shouldn't be only a hard counter to Undead and Demonic. I'll do some analysis later and make some suggestions in this thread.

I think Holy has the same role of Alliance: only support (and that is a shame).
My Holy deck is built in the same way as my Alliance one: accumulate many resources and then summon a powerful rare with some scepter to end the game. But it's non a keyword that can survive alone, it needs its own finishers (Avenging angel is not enough). I have some idea, later I will post some concepts.

Thank you NG_Beholder, that's all so true, a real revamp of Holy would be really sweet. I think if we changed Holy only replace when your Holy exceeds Purified Ashes would allow a better non-specific keyword trigger, aka playing Holy requires more skill/planning to disturb Undead/Demonic but is better in general. Perhaps:

C U R - Gain X random resources. U R - Gain X wall. R - Gain X tower. X = #Holy cards in hand. If X > Purified Ashes in opponents hand, replace a Undead/Demonic of same or lower rarity as played card.

As for the Holy-cardset, what if we imagine them as monks, who see keywords as materialistic possesions, in a buddhist sense. So common Holy-conditions could be:
"Non-keyword + Holy-cards in hand"
"Keywords in hand - Keywords in opponents hand",
"Each player looses X for each non-Holy Keyword card in hand"
"If #Holy > non-Holy cards in hand"

This will change the Holy+Unliving & Holy+Soldier-combos, but that will have to change regardless of how we update Holy right? I think Holy+Unliving would still make sense in this change though:
"#Holy + #Unliving in hand - other keywords in hand"
"If #Holy > #Soldier in hand

So here's my Holy cardset analysis.

Commons

OK: Avenger, Crystal golem, Elven priestesses, Graceful charity, Priest, Purifying fire.
Although I'd lower recruits+ condition for Priest since it doesn't have Soldier keyword.

Subpar:
Temple guard — reduce its cost to 5R and it's OK.

Temple of light — it's slightly too expensive. Should have +3 random resources returning or 4B cost.

Bad:
Cleansing. I want to highlight this one because it's playstyle-defining for Holy decks: indirect defense and boosting hand-replacement effect of Holy keyword. It should ruin your opponent's hand very hard, but… it doesn't because of two reasons.
The first one is the fact that almost every Holy common (except Cleansing itself, Benediction and Crystal golem) is useful or useless by its own. So you can make opponent's hand BETTER by playing Cleansing — Priest or Avenger can be even more useful for opponent than his own commons.
The second one is called "Purifying fire". Seriously, you spend one turn and 5G just to see your opponent playing 1G card next turn and discarding all garbage you gave him? It's annoying as hell, especially when he draws 2-3 uncommons after this.
This card needs something like reducing its cost to 1G or stock: +N. Or complete rework.

Benediction — if Holy had better defense, buffing enemy stock would be reasonable, but now it isn't. Also it's a burden for Restoration decks. I'd remove buffing enemy stock and include Restoration in its condition, but also I'd remove its own keywords from including in N and reduce stock gain to 3.

Chapel — a card that does almost nothing. Increase tower gain at least to 5 or make it another Holy summoner.

Shadow fairy — a relic of old ages. Remove its condition and leave only stock stealing part and let's see where it would be. Optional: make it persistent.

Commons that could be Holy:
Guardian spirit, Secret temple and White lady — all as is.
Also you can give it to Acolyte, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Uncommons

OK: Knight templar, Miracle, Monastery, Paladin, Priestess of light, Templar castle, Warpriest.

Subpar:
Cathedral — kinda good as resource+ card, but lacks defense. How about reducing tower gain to 5-7, but adding +12-14 wall gain?

Crusader — I'd add some attack depending on Holy cards in hand. Something like "If #Holy in hand > 3, attack: 8".

Guardian angel — since we lost Heresy/Death before dishonor combo, N limit for this card can be raised to 10 or cost can be lowered to 12G/12R. Now it's slightly too heavy for its effect.

Heavenly warrior — I have two ideas. First: removing enemy gems doesn't fit this deck at all, so it can be replaced with conditional Magic+ like on Lava spectre. Second: some conditional attack (5-6), like I've suggested for Crusader.

Seraphim — too heavy. Decrease its cost to 15R.

Zealot — again, its reliability lost and won't come back, so its N limit can be raised to 9-10.

Bad:
Fairy — come on, raise its cost to 7G to prevent first turn use and make it Swift again.

Uncommons that could be Holy:
Dark templar — as it is.
Glacial temple — reworked into something like this:
Mode 1: Magic: +1
Mode 2: Dungeon: +1
If #Holy in hand < 5 Quarry: -1
Risen angel — [s]just because Holy/Undead seems fun[/s] with Undead included in condition.

Rares

Can't say anything bad about Holy rares except one.
Avenging angel as it is now doesn't have ANY synergy with Holy, but perfectly fits Demonic decks. So I'd add another card with same effect and Demonic keyword and rework Avenging angel into something else, Holy-dependent.
My idea:
Cost: 20G, 20R
Attack: N*M/2 + 20
N = #Holy in hand
M = damage taken in last round
Oh, and another thing: pool of Holy rares is extremely narrow, but unlike Soldiers or Brigands, Holy doesn't work on commons and uncommons only. We need more Holy rares.

Rares that could be Holy:
Avatar of Vengeance — as it is.
(YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST) Angel of destruction — as it is.

Supportive cards

OK: Prayer

Subpar:
Divine intervention — Why Miracle has Holy keyword while Divine intervention doesn't? Give Holy to it and raise its cost to 14G.

Mountain of faith — I think it's subpar, but I'd like to see where it would be after changes to Holy cardset I've suggested, so I don't want this one to be changed.

Of course, something can be reworked and balanced other ways. As always, I'd like to hear thoughts, suggestions and critics.

About keyword itself: I really like Myschly's idea.

Yep, I like your ideas, nice analisys.

NG_Beholder wrote:
The second one is called "Purifying fire". Seriously, you spend one turn and 5G just to see your opponent playing 1G card next turn and discarding all garbage you gave him? It's annoying as hell, especially when he draws 2-3 uncommons after this.

Quoted for Truth.

My holy deck is one of my better decks, with a nice 2/1 ratio, and yet I have very little understanding at all of anything being discussed here. The only parts I can voice support for are NGBeholder's look at Cleansing and Shadow Fairy, and the token effect of Holy indeed being boring.

Everything else seems like these great, sweeping buffs and changes which will shift the balance of a lot of decks besides Holy, Undead, and Demonic...and we'll only really realize how clumsy and toe-stepping the changes were a few months later when the complaints build up.

However, there is one change I can look at on merits unrelated to the game at large, and that is Avenging Angel; I thought the entire reason it was so easy to summon and play with a Holy deck was because it didn't synergize well-- you know, that how it interacts with holy was intended, because it so often feels like it in play.

I strongly agree with proposals about:
- Cleansing
- Benediction
- Shadow fairy


I disagree with:
- Glacial Temple. It's good as it is.
- Mountain of Faith. Especially this one, is one of the best rare hand replacers imo.
- Not very sure that Angel of Destruction would fit in a Holy deck. It perfectly fits in Brigand or 0-cost decks but Holy? Not so sure.


For the rest I can't say much.

2Djinn:
Every change — even a couple of new commons — can (and will) shift overall balance one way or another. For example, Wheat farm — cheap and VERY effective way to build stock, especially with Harvest fairy which used to summon Wheat farm and replace a card in hand with another Wheat farm. So you could accumulate plenty of resources in very short time, which made big and hand-independent cards very strong. Then Harvest fairy was changed… and I don't remember when I saw this kind of decks.

2dimitris:
Well, Glacial temple can remain basically unchanged and increase Quarry or Dungeon. I think this card needs a slight buff, so why don't give Holy keyword to it?
You got me wrong. I like Mountain of faith and don't want to change it. If Holy cardset received a buff, it'd be more than enough.
About Angel of Destruction: Holy has a TON of resource+ cards, so this could be an interesting method of defense: destroy both stocks and rebuild your resources faster than your opponent.

Cleansing - unique card.