Retaliate Subtype

[ringkichard]

Retaliate is already pushing the power curve, in my opinion. It's probably as good as Bear Strength. When I force-ranked Gurmash's commands, in my opinion, Retaliate would have been the best, and by a wide enough margin that Gurmash would have become something of a one-trick-pony in competitive play.   

Now, that's just one playtester's opinion, but I found that Gurmash is at his most powerful with the Enchantment commands because they're often useful right away. All the other familiars can cast spells that are useful immediately (Force Hammer, Teleport, Enfeeble) but as a tradeoff for his durability, Gurmash is a bit more limited. Many commands have tricky timing when they're cast by Gurmash instead of your mage's Quickcast: if you have him cast Battle Fury, for example, your opponent may get a creature activation before you can use the Commanded creature. Your opponent can then retreat or guard or otherwise make your optimal use of Battle Fury difficult.

But the Enchantment commands largely avoid this problem, because they're ready to be revealed as soon as your opponent takes his next creature action. The armor from Fortified Position, or Standard Bearer can apply immediately. But the best enchantment command in the game would be Retaliate, if Retaliate were a command. If Bloodwave Warlord gets his hands on a weapon, giving him counterstrike every turn for 6 turns basically shuts down any agro attempt.

[echephron]

Retaliate is already pushing the power curve, in my opinion. It's probably as good as Bear Strength. When I force-ranked Gurmash's commands, in my opinion, Retaliate would have been the best, and by a wide enough margin that Gurmash would have become something of a one-trick-pony in competitive play.   

Now, that's just one playtester's opinion, but I found that Gurmash is at his most powerful with the Enchantment commands because they're often useful right away. All the other familiars can cast spells that are useful immediately (Force Hammer, Teleport, Enfeeble) but as a tradeoff for his durability, Gurmash is a bit more limited. Many commands have tricky timing when they're cast by Gurmash instead of your mage's Quickcast: if you have him cast Battle Fury, for example, your opponent may get a creature activation before you can use the Commanded creature. Your opponent can then retreat or guard or otherwise make your optimal use of Battle Fury difficult.

But the Enchantment commands largely avoid this problem, because they're ready to be revealed as soon as your opponent takes his next creature action. The armor from Fortified Position, or Standard Bearer can apply immediately. But the best enchantment command in the game would be Retaliate, if Retaliate were a command. If Bloodwave Warlord gets his hands on a weapon, giving him counterstrike every turn for 6 turns basically shuts down any agro attempt.

Yeah! What he said! All those things!

[sIKE]

Could this not be done for 6 more mana already? Or with the Enchanter's Ring by the Warlord on the Warlord using his QC? I am not sure if making this spell a Command would break anything. We are still talking about an action to cast the ring and an action to get Gurmash out and keeping him in two range of his mage and not get Gurmash focused killed after the 2nd retaliate then add in Seeking Dispel to disrupt this play.

Defend does close to the same as Retaliate, where as Retaliate is countered by a Seeking Dispel, Defend is countered by Unavoidable and Slam type conditions.

[Wildhorn]

If Bloodwave Warlord gets his hands on a weapon, giving him counterstrike every turn for 6 turns basically shuts down any agro attempt.

Nothing currently prevent the Warlord to QC Retaliate on himself for 6 turns.

[ringkichard]

Defend is similar to Retaliate, but it can't target mages, so you can't spam it on your Warlord.

Quickcasting Retaliate from the Warlord himself is of course an option, but it's worse than having a familiar do it for reasons of tempo. The quickcast marker is a more valuable type of action than a creature activation, so there's a higher opportunity cost in spamming it on yourself like that. Your opponent would know there's no surprise coming from the QC.

I'm not saying it would be crazy overpowered, but it's over my line.

[Arlemus]

Defend is similar to Retaliate, but it can't target mages, so you can't spam it on your Warlord.

Quickcasting Retaliate from the Warlord himself is of course an option, but it's worse than having a familiar do it for reasons of tempo. The quickcast marker is a more valuable type of action than a creature activation, so there's a higher opportunity cost in spamming it on yourself like that. Your opponent would know there's no surprise coming from the QC.

I'm not saying it would be crazy overpowered, but it's over my line.

After someone had put a weapon on and done it once, you could just counter with agony, or seeking dispel, or attack it with something with good armor...or use ranged.

I respect that it crosses your line, but spamming in MW against a decent opponent with a well thought out book doesn't really work out.  Though, I guess you could consider battleforge armor stacking "spam" but acid ball counters that too so...

[aquestrion]

Why can't we just go through every single card that doesn't have a subtype and just put one on there so everyone will quit disputing it

[sIKE]

Defend is similar to Retaliate, but it can't target mages, so you can't spam it on your Warlord.

Quickcasting Retaliate from the Warlord himself is of course an option, but it's worse than having a familiar do it for reasons of tempo. The quickcast marker is a more valuable type of action than a creature activation, so there's a higher opportunity cost in spamming it on yourself like that. Your opponent would know there's no surprise coming from the QC.

I'm not saying it would be crazy overpowered, but it's over my line.

So does Fella casting Retaliate and the BM/Druid using Enchanter's Ring cause breakage too?

[ringkichard]

I think Fellella would be top tier if she were as durrable as Gurmash, yes. Comparable to Wizard's Tower, even, because Enchantments are better than Attack spells. When I was trying to break her, Retaliate + Bear Strength was my combo of choice. But Fellella is currently just too fragile to be top tier, with or without Retaliate, IMO.

Future Enchantments that would make Fellella tougher would need to be handled thoughtfully. Given her mana
cost, though, efficiently keeping Fellella alive is currently a real chalange, and likely to remain so.

[ringkichard]

After someone had put a weapon on and done it once, you could just counter with agony, or seeking dispel, or attack it with something with good armor...or use ranged.

(disclaimer: very tiered) Agony in this context is a good solution if you can keep the pressure on, but if the Warlord gets some breathing space Harshforge Plate and Monolith can complicate things badly. Importantly, Agony does not cause damage, so it's a bummer for an agro book to play it when it would rather be playing Ghoul Rot or Magebane, but you can use the curse amulets with it, so it's still decent.

Seeking Dispel, I think, is not a good play as an agro book because you don't want to trade actions harmlessly with the defender. The Warlord is probably happy to spend one of his three spells a turn negating one of a Warlock's two.

Armor is good against Retaliate, no argument there. Don't use Retaliate against an Iron Golem.

I haven't really seen much ranged agro except for Balista books. Retaliate is obviously the wrong solution in that case. But Rolling Fog is so powerful in that matchup that I think we're unlikely to see too much of it.

Again, I'm not saying that Retaliate spam is unbeatable, just that it would be too good against agro. And by agro I mean specifically the type of spellbook which does not improve its channeling and tries too do damage to the opponent each turn starting on turn three.

[Arlemus]

After someone had put a weapon on and done it once, you could just counter with agony, or seeking dispel, or attack it with something with good armor...or use ranged.

(disclaimer: very tiered) Agony in this context is a good solution if you can keep the pressure on, but if the Warlord gets some breathing space Harshforge Plate and Monolith can complicate things badly. Importantly, Agony does not cause damage, so it's a bummer for an agro book to play it when it would rather be playing Ghoul Rot or Magebane, but you can use the curse amulets with it, so it's still decent.

Seeking Dispel, I think, is not a good play as an agro book because you don't want to trade actions harmlessly with the defender. The Warlord is probably happy to spend one of his three spells a turn negating one of a Warlock's two.

Armor is good against Retaliate, no argument there. Don't use Retaliate against an Iron Golem.

I haven't really seen much ranged agro except for Balista books. Retaliate is obviously the wrong solution in that case. But Rolling Fog is so powerful in that matchup that I think we're unlikely to see too much of it.

Again, I'm not saying that Retaliate spam is unbeatable, just that it would be too good against agro. And by agro I mean specifically the type of spellbook which does not improve its channeling and tries too do damage to the opponent each turn starting on turn three.

I definitely agree about seeking dispel.  You don't want to directly 1 or 1 actions against a book that is likely to have more every turn.

Thinking about it now I think armor would be the easiest and best bet for most aggro books.  If you're running an "agro" style you're likely running battleforge build where armor stacking comes naturally and coupled with a vet belt you could pretty easily shrug off retaliate.

Overall it seems like most people are in favor of the change, perhaps we could get an opinion from a higher power? 

[Arlemus]

I'm necroing this thread for great justice    I really want to see this through, one way or the other.

Outside the respectable opinion of playtester kichard, everyone seems to be in agreement with Retaliate gaining the command subtype.  Have any other players/playtesters/mods tried out retaliate as a command?  If there isn't an overall consensus that it would be too overpowered, retaliate looks, acts, and reads like a command...