Troops that should have a buff

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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Some of the most popular troops currently were once troops that were underpowered until they were improved. (The Wild Queen and Zuul’Goth are two examples). Since troops are constantly being offered in event chests or being sold as premium bundles, its pretty important to make as many of them as viable as possible for fun and financial reasons.

These are the Mythic and Legendary troops I’d like to see improved.

If anyone else has suggested troops, feel free to add them.

Mythics:

  1. Abynissia: 22 mana one color exploder. At this point of the game, Ragnagord does the same function for a much cheaper mana cost. Many troops do the summoning function better. Harpy Mage and Leprechaun exist. This troop needs a major redo; even the traits are underwhelming. The art is nice though.

*Needs a brand new function

  1. Champion of Anu: Low initial damage and high mana cost. Its also a Defender, so medal upgrades don’t fix it. Will of Nysha is a 22 mana cost and has a higher damage output, spell block, and upside to its cast.

*24 mana → 22 mana
*Human Shield → Spell Block

  1. Champion of Gaard: Its good, but it could be better. The Wild Queen does the same function (different colors) for 22 mana.

*24 mana → 22 mana

  1. Death: I got the 2:1 ratio I suggested, but even now its hard not to advocate for a buff. Doom of X troops now deathmark all troops, and this troop does scatter damage boosted by life, but a boost ratio lower than Bul’Taros/Sunbird. 24 mana is also too expensive for its damage. (Beetrix has a 2 * Magic true scatter damage)

*24 mana > 22 mana
*2:1 to 1:1 boost ratio, because its a mythic and 2:1 isn’t super viable in the current stage of the game.
*Change scatter damage to true scatter damage; would love it more as a steal life scatter damage

  1. Doomclaw: This thing didn’t age well. Low damage, even with a full boost ratio. Unique effect, but its an inefficient devour troop currently compared to modern options (examples: High King Irongut, or Glutmaw). The guild guardian troop Persistence does Doomclaw things, only better. (Does more damage with a double damage clause, 3rd trait self-boosts, and a chance to devour). Raging a random ally is actually really unhelpful if its not the first troop, so the 3rd trait alone doesn’t save the troop.

*Boost ratio should boost devour chance too. Boost Ratio can be adjusted if needed.
*Should also have a chance to devour the troop its targeting
*Mana cost may need adjusting if not much is changed about Doomclaw.

6: Draakulis: One of the earlier mythics, could use an upward adjustment to keep up.

*Armored trait → Ice Armor trait
*More exciting 3rd trait (Add 50% of Life to Skull damage?)

  1. Elemaugrim: I don’t have a good reasoning for this one other than I think it could use a mana adjustment to keep up with the current play environment.

*25 mana → 24 mana

  1. Fallen Valdis: Mana cost is too high, spell effect is too underwhelming AND too narrow. It was too slow as an anti-Divine troop on release and badly needs help.

*Keep the damage
*Change Explode 3 Doomskulls, boosted by Divine Enemies to:
→ Transform all Skulls to Doomskulls, Explode 3 Doomskulls boosted by Divine Enemies and Diseased Enemies. Slayer Ghost inspired
or
->Create 3 Doomskulls, boosted by Divine Enemies and Diseased Enemies. Explode Magic/2 Gems. Captain Skullbeard inspired
*Change Silence Divine Enemies → Silence Diseased Enemies
*24 mana → 22 mana

  1. Famine: With Bless and troops with Immunity to Mana Drain, the troop can afford some improvements.

*Bring back Jinx, removed Accursed
*Maybe add Curse all Enemies to its spell, after the initial mana drain.

  1. Gaard’s Avatar: There are many Youtubers that advocate for Rowanne over Gaard’s Avatar. Rowanne is the free option AND somehow better than Gaard’s Avatar.

*Buff damage from Magic/2 to Magic. The Magic/2 isn’t needed
*Buff Boost Ratio to 3:2

  • Change Burn Undead to Burn all Enemies
  1. Gargantaur: Something about “It does damage” for 22 mana is really not exciting. For something named Gargantaur, it doesn’t feel big.

*Add a secondary effect: Gain life equal to the spell damage dealt.

  1. Jotnar Stormshield: Something about “It does true damage” for 22 mana is also not exciting. The new Basilisk troop can do more true damage for less mana.

Add a secondary effect: Dispel all enemies, before doing the true damage.
Add a secondary effect: Stun and Freeze the targeted enemy. (the spell is called Thunder Javelin
Increase damage to 2Magic. Megavore strips all armor from everyone AND 2Magic and has a high base damage.

  1. Ketras the Bull: Its a Divine, may as well give it Holy Armor.

*Armored trait to Holy Armor

  1. King Bloodwood: Its on the wrong side of the almost good curve.

*change Heavy Splash Damage to True Heavy Splash Damage
*change Steal 10 Life to all Enemies to Steal Magic/2 Life to all Enemies

  1. Mistralus: I like Mistralus, but it doesn’t really do anything to deserve being 1 mana more than Aquaticus/Infernus

*25 mana → 24 mana

  1. Mother of Darkness: 24 mana is too much for an average damage dealer.

*24 mana → 22 mana

  1. Obsidius: Obsidius is nice, but there’s no real reason to handicap its damage compared to similar troops (Aquaticus/Mistralus/Infernus)

*chance 50% to always be 100% chance to deal the light splash damage

  1. Pharos-Ra: No one will say much since it exists just to be a 3rd trait, but it could use some tune ups.

*Change Give 20 Souls to Give Magic Souls
24 mana → 22 mana

  1. Plague: Is it safe to say Plague needs a buff yet?

*buff the spell to Eliminate x from 2 random Skills from All Enemies. Ahrimas inspired

  1. Queen Aurora: Is it safe to say Queen Aurara could use a buff? There’s always people out there that say she’s fine as is, but then at the same time all you ever see is The Possessed King. She should be the Queen support troop, not the weak link of a team.

*buff the spell to include Queen Aurora for barrier and life. Divinia gives life and cleanses herself and allies, so Queen Aurora should have the same benefit as a Mythic.
*Cleanse all allies. Divinia Inspired
*improve the second half of the spell: Create 10 Gems of a chosen Color and give one quarter of their Mana to all Allies of that color. Solari/Deminaga inspired

  1. Queen of Sin: Any reason why it couldn’t do damage to all Enemies like Euryali? Euryali also summons too.

*change Deal true damage to the first 2 Enemies to Deal true damage to all Enemies.

  1. Shade of Zorn: Something about “It does damage” for 24 mana and only if something dies does it summon 2 useless troops seems not exciting at all. It doesn’t feel like a Shady troop at all.

*Add a Primary effect: Destroy X Gems. Marilith/Bogstrider/Thrall inspired. Shade of Zorn now manipulates the board from the shadows.
*keep the damage effect as a Mythic upside
*Remove if the Enemy dies, and just have it “Summon a Fist of Zorn”

  1. Stonehammer: Its good, but it could be better. The Wild Queen does the same function (different colors) for 22 mana.

*24 mana → 22 mana

  1. Suna: I don’t know what it could use, but it could use a little more power. Right now it just takes too long to be effective.

*maybe add a transform a specific color to red like Pharos-Ra?

  1. The Worldbreaker: Its not a bad troop, but it doesn’t really deserve a 30 mana cost.

*30 mana → 28? mana less?

  1. Tian Yi: Its almost good, though the new hero Doomed Weapons basically does double the damage of Tian Yi with less hoops to jump through.

*the biggest issue is the deal double damage clause is based off of your Tian Yi’s attack, but the 3rd trait steals Magic. I feel like the double damage clause should be based on having a higher magic.
*24 mana → 20 mana

  1. Undine: At one point, when blue had no real options for Immunity to silence, it was a pure menace. Nowadays, it just gets countered out easily. Queen Beetrix cleanses all ally on 4/5 match, making the silence even more pointless. Submerge Blue Allies is rather pointless as Aquaticus exists for easier access. The damage isn’t even all that interesting.

*It really needs a new gimmick

  1. Vash’Dagon: Its underpowered, so the Black Best gimmick more or less gets overlooked. Doesn’t help there’s also casting issues preventing allied devourment.

*fix devouring issues
*improve the boost ratio to 1:1

  1. Voice of Orpheus: This problem is that it doesn’t include its own mana in the damage output despite the boost ratio saying otherwise. For that, it underdelivers on damage output.

*boost ratio from 1:1 to 2:1 to be in line with Famine

  1. Xathenos: I want to like it, but I just think its still missing something that makes it more interesting. Right now, I just see it as 22 mana to do some magic based damage to one enemy…

*It needs a new 3rd trait. On death traits are some of the least reliable traits as enemy troops can only die so many times unless you’re running into a summoning team. Maybe like a gain mana when an ally casts trait would be nice.

  1. Yasmine’s Chosen: The longer the game goes, the weaker she gets as basic scatter damage doesn’t improve much. There’s many troops with better scatter damage conditions (Rowanne, Bul’Taros, Sunbird)

*Her damage output needs to be fixed somehow, something that isn’t just increasing her base dmg by a few points.

  1. Zilopochtli: 25 mana for this troop is just too much

25 mana → 22 mana

  1. Zuul’Goth: Its strong and the removal of one shot cast makes it a good troop. However…

*It needs a role change. Assassin is only gives +4 Attack and +4 Magic, both of which Zuul’Goth really doesn’t benefit from.

Legendaries:

  1. Abhorrath : This was an early troop in the game that really hasn’t been touched. It has a unique gimmick, but because it gains no armor back, a single skull cascade can kill it from fresh life super easily. Its built like a front line but doesn’t function well as a front line.

*remove one of the top 2 traits and add Stoneskin trait
*give it a new 3rd trait, maybe Gain 3 to all Skills when an Ally casts
*lower the mana cost, as removing all gems is not mana generation

  1. Bone Dragon: Back in the old days, it was too strong. I get it. In the modern atmosphere, it doesn’t need to strip all armor again, but it could lose the cap of 25 armor. At least let Bone Dragon get a little better over time.

*Change Eliminate up to 25 Armor to X Armor based on Magic
*Change the 3rd trait to a universal troop trait because it would be a helpful troop trait for lower rarity troops, and give it a new trait.

  1. Borealis: the new epic troop Sylfrostenath does damage to all Enemies and has a random chance to freeze 1-4 Enemies. Any reason why we can’t just have Borealis do damage to all Enemies and freeze all Enemies?

*Change the damage from random Enemy to all enemies

  1. Captain Macaw: Not a real buff suggestion, but… that 3rd trait needs to seriously be reworded lol

*reword the 3rd trait to be like all of the 50% mana troops.

  1. Carnex: A relic of the past. It could be good and used more often with a bit more touch up…

*Explode x Skulls based on magic
*Change Armored for Stoneskin.

  1. Matron Dragonani: I want to like it, but Create 6 Blue Gems without a plan is more a downside then upside.

*Change Create 6 Blue Gems to Create 8 Blue Gems

  1. Orion: That damage range variable just isn’t necessary… There’s a lot of troops that do more reliable damage.

*Change the 1st trait based on PvP. Way too outdated
*Change the damage range to flat damage

  1. Sol’Zara: A legendary troop designed for soul farming, but is too cumbersome to be an effective soul farmer.

*Change Gain 10 Souls to Gain x Souls based on Magic

  1. Tesla: Its already good. I get it. But, it really shouldn’t have a troop medal upgrade where it gains absolutely 0 benefits. Why would I spend 6 Anu medals for 0 stats? I value my time more than that.

*Change Deal 8 true scatter to Deal Magic true scatter
*It needs a new 3rd trait that isn’t a flat gain for an irrelevant troop type.

  1. The Silent One: There’s way too much protection against Silence and that’s all The Silent One does…

*Add a secondary effect: Curse All Enemies, before its primary spell. It can continue doing what its supposed to do.

  1. The Wendigo: There are so many troops that do regular damage to all enemies that The Wendigo gets nothing from doing half that damage. What’s worse is it has a 5x Boost Ratio, but that also gets cut in half too!

*Change the range to just regular magic

  1. Urskula: It does so little scatter damage that its laughable. At 46 scatter damage, its only doing an average of 11 to all enemies, far below the average of my regular damage to all troops.
  • Change the damage so it either
    ->boost the scatter damage by all Ally attack value
    or:
    ->double the magic value, like Queen Beetrix (which does her damage as True Scatter Damage)
    *16 mana → 15 mana
  1. Venoxia: deal 4 true damage to all Enemies is such an arbitrary number. Queen Beetrix does Venoxia things better than Venoxia

*increase the true damage value

  1. The Widow Queen: Its damage output is rather low for the amount of effort needed to use it on a good team.

*Change either:
->Half magic to all Enemies to Magic to all Enemies
or
->Change the boost ratio of 3:1 to something better

There’s a few troops like Gruz the Undefeated , Hydra, and Saguaro that desperate need something, but I don’t know what can be done.

Edit 1: 6/6/20: Shadow-Dragon really needs a new 3rd trait. Darkfall does nothing to compliment the troop’s kit and is outpaced by Orc traits. Frenzy and Grudge also give it a run for its money and aren’t Legendary troop 3rd traits.

Edit 2: 6/8/20: Divine Ishbaala could have her trait safely reverted back to 50% again. The game is at a faster and tankier enough state where Divines won’t insta-win the game… that belongs to Goblins again.

That took awhile to write. Hopefully we can get some troop buffs. It brings more excitement to the game.

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All troops that do not scale with magic.

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I’d love to see Elemaugrim steal attack on 4+ matches. Maybe only 2 or 3 instead of 4, but that could make him a sweet front troop.

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it would also help him to burn all enemies like his dungeon version does - would give him a little boost

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How about an “Add X% of Skull Damage to Life”? Would make him a lot more of a front liner, though, especially along with the suggested Ice Armor, and make his spell a bit less relevant. Food for thought, anyway; would fit the whole Dracula theme. Bah, lol, yours makes more sense, I think, esp. with the spell and how scaling content is structured.

Love the Valdis suggestions.

I like Obsidius a lot, and generally consider him to be better (more useful, for me) than his peers even with the 50% chance, tbh, probably due to his Stun (and maybe Stoneskin) – but I know that might not get universal agreement. Am I a true outlier here, or does anyone else feel similarly?

My main gripe with TWB is that his ‘Insane Growth’ really stops being ‘insane’ by mid-game – especially if you compare it to the new Guild Guardians (although of course they don’t do AoE). It would be really cool if they could integrate Magic or Level scaling into traits, along the lines of

And on that note, I’d be tempted to try making a list of just those troops and attempting to find a base effect that would be acceptable/comparable at lower levels, and then scale a little bit later on. I mean, Tau, come on, please.

As a small touch, while I think of other things, the summoned Infernal King could be Enchanted.

For a new third trait, how about “Give all allied Daemons Spell Block while I am alive”? Or ~40% reduction. Goes with the ‘mother of daemons’ protective vibe.

I think she might need to cut her ties with the Infernal King – when she was released, he was probably the only/main powerful Daemon troop, but others have come forth, and she needs to represent them all :stuck_out_tongue:.

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Close, but not quite.
All troops that lose strength as levels on both sides increase need to be buffed.
Some spells are primarily gem converters for example and that’s fine. A spell that turns all blue into yellow and red to skulls, doesn’t need to turn the whole board into yellow and skulls as the troop levels up, that would make it overpowered.
But if its 3rd trait is something like ‘steal 15 health when matching yellow’, that’s cool at vanilla/unboosted level 20, but a joke when delving at level 300.

Then again, this might be intentional, if not exactly great game design.

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The scaling should affect any color with damage or effect in BLACK (not scaling) should be changed to be purple (SCALING). Obviously, excluding spells that convert all X to Y. But, yes, traits should scale with magic as well (as should hero level talents).

For example, firebomb: explode 4 red gems (non scaling) … to explode (4 + magic/2) - something like that.

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You listed a ton of troops that I think are absolutely fine and don’t need to be touched. Of course that’s my opinion, and you have yours, but nonetheless…

  • Abynissia
  • Champion of Anu
  • Champion of Gaard
  • Elemaugrim
  • Jotnar Stormshield
  • Ketras the Bull
  • King Bloodwood
  • Mistralus
  • Mother of Darkness
  • Obsidius
  • Pharos-Ra
  • Queen Aurora
  • Queen of Sin
  • Stonehammer
  • Suna
  • The Worldbreaker
  • Tian Yi
  • Undine
  • Vash’Dagon
  • Voice of Orpheus
  • Xathenos
  • Yasmine’s Chosen
  • Zilopochtli

And all of the legendary troops you listed, are perfectly fine the way they are. The game would absolutely spiral out of control if troops were constantly tweaked to maintain some kind of “ultimate balance” and to make every troop comparatively useful. It’s impossible. As soon as you touch all of these, there would be others, lower rarities especially, that would need to be tweaked, and then it would never end.

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I think the list of troops, though long, is a good one, actually, especially because it’s at the upper-band of the rarity spectrum (and because the point is making the top feel stronger than the bottom—hence why a buff to the top wouldn’t trickle down to making lower-rarity troops stronger, too. That would just perpetuate the problem this post seeks to remedy).

A mythic and a legendary should feel mythic or legendary, basically.

And tons just don’t.

Tons pale in comparison to epics in terms of usefulness. And when one mythic is basically a single-troop army on its own, and others are never used because they’re garbage, something more than a “minor tweak” would probably benefit the game by making all the troops that are supposed to be good actually be good.

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This would so MUCH for variety on teams. +1 from me.

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Wow, Idle going in!

A lot to digest here, I’ll just highlight a few of the suggestions I agreed/disagreed with.

  • Abynissia - YES this is arguably the worst mythic right now. Needs new traits (let her scale Daemon stats plz; Gray King shows this can be given to troops with board control, so let her do it for the Daemons) and a new summon (Infernal King blocks her on two colors, actually inhibiting her ability to make comebacks; summoning any Daemon would be an improvement)

  • Doomclaw - He needs buffs, but even boosted devour chances wouldn’t make him a substitute for Irongut. I think just giving him (heavy?) splash damage might be enough to improve his viability.

  • Draakulis - This mythic looks too cool to be so bad. Your suggestions are sensible upgrades, even though first-slot-only Mythics are doomed to be niche

  • Elemaugrim - Needs help, and I don’t think just 1 mana less gets it there. I would reduce its mana cost to 22, and have its damage be boosted on burning enemies as well. Maybe keep the mana cost at 24 or 25 if the booster is high enough.

  • Fallen Valdis - the worst Mythic released since 2016 badly needs help. I like the Slayer Ghost-inspired suggestion a lot, as it fits with the Dhrak-Zum Legendaries well (which seemed to be one of her intended roles).

  • King Bloodwood - he’s currently pretty good, the proposed change would make him instantly top-tier. While it wouldn’t break the game or anything, this is one of the least-needed of the proposed changes.

  • Borealis - YES PLZ; this simple change would increase its usage a bit

  • Orion - he is so close to being a unique and interesting front troop. Give him some skull resistance and give him curse on cast and he becomes something you actually want to use. Can increase his mana cost to compensate, if necessary.

  • The Silent One - would people want to use a troop just for status effects on cast? Silence is really strong, but I’m not sure the proposed change gets him there. He’d need to do damage or affect the board to catch my interest. Maybe if he drained mana as well as silenced, he’d be worth it?

  • Urskula - with Defiance teams being viable with Urskula, that second tweak you suggested would be a perfect buff.

Since you asked for other suggested troops…

Skadi (so close to being a great troop, get rid of her mana burn gimmick and give her some solid damage)

Artema (a lot of legendaries need help, but the entire Centaur type is a bad joke at this point; make her the 50% mana start Centaur, and at least they have a foundation to be usable)

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Hopefully 5.0 brings some of the much needed changes of these troops.

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Good list! Getting useful toop buffs is what I miss the most in GoW. To finally be able to use old/outdated troops against the meta PvP or in the Guild Wars.

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I’m only going to list my thoughts to mythics I feel that could use a different change. All unlisted troops I’m very content with the suggested buff

Elemaugrim: release the boost ratio from burning enemies so it may stand alone without Infernus or let it burn all enemies on cast.
Yasmine’s chosen: release the boost ratio from entangle or increase the damage boost via entangled enemies to 20 damage

Gargantaur: let the cast raise his attack by the damage amount so when troops above him dies, he’s a threat.

Jotnar: barrier all allies upon cast. Could even add reflect on top of that (not sure if reflect on barrier does anything).

King Bloodwood: I would only change true heavy splash damage, not change the steal 10 life to all enemies. He would be a troop that needs to be paired for more damage.

Suna: up true damage power by 5 and give an option to remove gems of a certain colour from the board. (gives her some board control which doesn’t exist with phoenicia or Queen Titania)

Worldbreaker: destroy the board, don’t explode X gems.

Tian Yi: steal 4 magic from a random troop, remove the x2 damage from spells (buffing it on x2 damage gives underlevelled players no chance)

Xathenos: Add kill the last slot of both the ally and enemy and summon an undead for both sides upon cast. (Serves to kill the driver of the enemy team and slow the speed of the game.)

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Plenty of awesome suggestions here. Really highlights how troops that were once reasonable have been left behind by new troops many of which are not mythic. Re working of many troops is way overdue.

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Just reacting to a few suggestions others made:

Plus it would give him some kind of value later in rounds - you actually don’t want to cast him currently if the opponent is down to their last troop, particularly if they are fireproof.

You are not alone here - I think he’s significantly better than Aquaticus and Infernus, for the reasons you listed. Mistralus is a closer call, but you just can’t beat stun-all, which single-handedly counters a lot of defenses.

It’s funny, early on, I mistakenly thought TWB added 5 to all stats on 4/5 matches (not a random stat). Even then, I didn’t think he was top tier. He needs that kind of improvement to be worth using in non-scaling content.

I don’t follow…maybe you are mixing up Death and Famine? Death was on my honorable mention list in terms of needing changes. Yes changing damage from 2:1 to 1:1 would help, but he should be THE death mark mythic…and death mark as it currently exists is one of the worst mechanics in the game. It needs to be completely overhauled for Death to become an interesting troop.

17

Added Shadow Dragon to the list. It really needs a new 3rd trait.

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My bad, when I wrote that I was thinking death mark would be changed to first turn activation. No idea why I did, I’m going to scratch it off my post.

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Probably won’t add it to the master list, but I think the newest Mythic Sycorax needs a typing change from Elemental/Mystic to Elemental/Giant.

I get that it was probably to prevent Titan synergy, but I just don’t agree with it.

1.The flavor feels wrong.

How is the Mother of All Trolls not the same troll type as every other Troll?

  1. At 25 mana, its incredibly slow to get going, which is the exact opposite of every other troll. Every other troll is somewhat fast to fill for the sole purpose of jump starting the team. Sycorax doesn’t do that. In fact, you might need a troll to fill the mother troll. Doesn’t feel right.

  2. Shahbanu Vespera already does basically the same thing conceptually as Sycorax as an Elemental/Mystic ; they’re both slow but loop-friendly troops. Its basically apples to oranges, they’re both very fruity. Considering they both would only get half-mana start from The Maraji Queen or a future Mystic… the overlap is super unnecessary. Half-mana Giant here would at least create a different playstyle.

PS. The 3rd trait needs to be changed or buffed. Its so needlessly weak, combined with how slow the start up Sycorax is. It doesn’t have to be a 4/5 gem match trait, but when I’m personally thinking that some of the Trolls have better traits than Sycorax’s 3rd trait, it leaves a lot to be desired. Think about it, after 5 turns, you have… 5 attack and 5 armor. Yawn. Even Abynissia does 2 Attack and 2 Life.

I just want another playstyle that isn’t shove Sycorax on the same team as The Maraji Queen and mostly likely King Gobtruffle.

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Added Divine Ishbaala to the list. It could probably safely have its 50% trait back, instead of 40%.

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