Intro
I'm becoming increasingly interested in the complex topic of balance in Gods Unchained. An ever-growing list of cards and mechanics, combined with a Genesis set that will (most likely) never be changed, presents some really complex puzzles that turn out to be fun to solve.
What caught my eye most recently was the explanation from the GU team surrounding the Phalanx Lieutenant:
Change stats from 4/1 to 5/3.
Change text from “Armor 2” to “Armor 1”.
Team: A well deserved buff for our poor Phalanx Lieutenant. He’s still probably not going to win any tournaments any time soon, but at least he doesn’t look quite as bad next to Guild Enforcer anymore.
They buffed him, but realized he's still not cutting it compared to other options.
The Problem
Your vanilla Helios provides 11 stats. Guild enforcer trades in 3 stats for frontline and armor 1. Phalanx Lt also trades in 3 stats, but only gets armor 1. True, he doesn't look "quite as bad" as he did, but I agree with the devs: he's not there yet.
He also has one extra problem: cards with more attack than health are (on balance) worse than if they were flipped. Everyone loves Skeleton Heavy at 2/4. No one should play Amazon Spearsoul at 4/2.
Phalanx Lt has this problem. Even if he was 5/3 Armor 1 and Frontline, he would still be much worse than Guild Enforcer. He dies to so many more cards that GE is immune from. Popular cards that are in practically every deck like:
For 1-2 mana, they clear your 5 mana creature.
Brainstorming Solutions
Here's the puzzle: how to turn Phalanx Lt into an interesting card - unique from GE - without making him over-powered? Out of necessity, I have to ignore any potential armor re-work going on behind the scenes. In short, I'm asking if I could come up with a better temporary fix than what he is now. Let's think through some ideas.
First, let's constrain ourselves to the existing stat line. There is room for another keyword in his power budget (Guild Enforcer has both armor 1 and frontline). Adding frontline is boring (and terrible given low HP). What about:
Protected
Protected and armor have an interesting synergy: 1 damage will not pop protected. You have to deal 2 before the shield pops. This forces your opponent to spend 2 cards to answer. It could be something as simple as a mage using:
Other gods would more likely combine a creature with 2+ attack and one of those spells we listed.
In this case, Phalanx Lt becomes a way to trade tempo for card advantage. The mage only spent 3 mana to clear your 5 mana card, but they had to burn 2 cards.
The biggest weakness of this card would be Blight Bomb, which would kill it outright (for only 1 mana and 1 card). This certainly helps keep the card from being OP. It's generally easy to draw out a Blight Bomb before 5 mana, but if they top deck another one, it would be punishing.
OK, so solution number 1 looks promising. If you felt that this was a little over-tuned, you could always shave off 1 strength and make him a 4/3. He still keeps the interesting/unique mechanic (protected + shield out of the box). I also like protected because it makes a lot of sense thematically.
Stat Adjustment
This one is a little boring, but I IMO better than his current iteration.
We simply distribute his stats to avoid the dreaded Amazon Spearsoul situation. At 4 HP with 1 armor, those cheap and popular spells no longer counter the Lieutenant by themselves. Also, in no way could anyone argue that he is overpowered. He is still understated compared to Guild Enforcer (missing the second keyword).
Swing for the fences
OK this one is out there, but it doesn't mean I didn't put some thought into it. Something I'd like to see more in this game is positional play. There is some of that (you want Netherswarm Lord to the right of Obelisk to buff the spawned zombies). However, there are no cards with explicit positional mechanics. How about a redesign that heavily emphasizes the Phalanx theme?
Unique, not overpowered, and fun. Importantly, this approach to armor also gives opponents a way to play around it. They can use weak creatures and spells to clear the adjacent creatures until Phalanx Lt loses his armor. While this one is out there, it's the most interesting in my opinion. It might require heavy dev work to implement, though. I have no idea if a card knows there is a card next to it or not. If this just isn't possible, something that would accomplish almost the same thing:
This could be implemented today and accomplishes 90% of what would make this card unique.
Conclusion
I hope this got some juices flowing and was fun to read. I enjoyed thinking through this particular puzzle more than I thought I would.