Half of Watcher's rare cards are worthless

[Bopple]

There are 17 rare cards for Watcher.

Among them, Alpha, Blasphemy, Conjure Blade, Establishment, Master Reality, Omniscience, Ragnarok, Wish are worthless. 8 of them in total.

They either consume too much cost, turns or don't do anything significant. Actually, they are not only worthless or non-synergistic, but harmful. They are curse cards.

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Deva Form is marginally useful, if you have NO energy relic.

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Spirit Shield and Devotion are fine.

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Brilliance, Vault, Judgment are good.
Lesson Learned is excellent.
Scrawl and Deus Ex Machina are amazing.

These cards work great in almost any build or have great synergies in some builds.

===

I know you cannot balance every card. But half of rare cards are total trash? That makes no sense at all.

[khiro]

Watcher's rares are all super gimmicky, and i'm ok with that for the most part. It makes for interesting runs. Have you ever had an omniscience alpha run? It's so satisfying to stack 300 omega by turn 3 each combat and just nuke enemies. I underrated blasphemy when i played watcher in beta. The card is actually insane sometimes, especially with conjure blade. Wish is not a bad card. It costed less in the beta and it was OP. I agree that ragnarok and master reality are ♥♥♥♥ though. I don't get why they tried to push the master reality archetype so hard cuz it's really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[DuckSonata]

Bopple a écrit :

LOL. Have you forgotten about it when Defect was introduced? Its cards have been radically changed, since the release. And suddenly Watcher's cards are bulletproof?

Even an Ironclad card has been hit by a nerf, very, very long after the release.

Who said they're bulletproof? They can and probably will change, but they don't need to change just because you haven't figured them out yet.

Khor a écrit :

thinking in "archetypes" ends up being detrimental

I really hope you're just playing semantics here because if you keep blaspheming against the archetypes, they will surely strike you down in the precise way that will most devastate you personally: the destruction of all your steam emoticons.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Alpha - It's okay, but you really need a thin deck to use it well, and I'm not really a fan of thin decks. Could pair it with a lot of Scry, but most of Watcher's Scry cards aren't good enough to pack that many.

Blasphemy - Being able to end a fight 2-3 turns faster is very good. Drawing it when you can actually use it is tricky though, so the upgrade (adds Retain) is pretty much necessary. You also want a good amount of additional card draw to make your big turn big enough.

Conjure Blade - Watcher has several ways to find herself in a situation where she has more energy than she knows what to do with. Conjure Blade is her only X cost attack to dump that excess energy into, but it is kinda slow and that's not great when it usually already takes a few turns to get that kind of energy surplus. Has some niche use for bosses but it might as well be a curse in hallways.

Establishment - This card is absolutely amazing. Many of Watcher's best cards have Retain on them and this makes all of those cards 100x better. I shouldn't even have to explain this, if you can't see the value in this you are wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. It's hard for me to picture ever not taking this card when offered, even if I somehow don't have a single Retain card yet I still know I'm going to pick several up soon because of how important they are in general.

Master Reality - Look at how many cards this synergizes with, it's hella good. It's only worth taking after you have more than a few cards it pairs with, but as soon as you do it's a fantastic addition.

Omniscience - Very strong, and IMO one of the most fun cards in the game. Being able to search your draw pile and grab anything you need right now is useful in many different ways. And playing a high cost card twice can obviously accomplish a lot. 4 cost makes it a bit hard to use, but with an energy relic and Calm it's much more playable than you might think. The payoff is so good, it's worth every mana.

Ragnarok - It's okay. Powerful act 1 card, and can remain good later on with the right relic synergies. I wouldn't take it late in the run without plenty of synergy though.

Wish - Another card whose value lies in its flexibility, all three options have their place. I could argue that the best case for it is stalling out hallways so you can get that precious gold. If you get Omniscience to go with it, doubling the plate armor is pretty awesome.

[Spawnling]

The cards you dislike need multiple rares and/or uncommons to work.
The cards you like have a high impact all by themslef.
(e.g. Omniscience a Ragnarok with Akebako/Wrath of Flames or
Establishment, Master of Reality, Battle Hymn)

[kanarienvogel]

Ragnarok with some damage-enhancments (either Strength or Wreath of Flame) and multiplied by Divinity can one-shot a lot of things, including bosses.
Conjure Blade is THE finisher in Deva Form/multiple Vaults combo, where you destroy enemy before they get a single turn.
Wish is good simply for ramping up a lot of gold. That's 30 gold per fight, 60 if you have Omniscience to spare on weaker enemies.
Omniscience can make beastly Deva form. Or Conjure Blade without spending all your mana. A chain of Omnisciences can play all your key setup cards (Deva Form, Devotions etc) on turn1 *twice*
Blasphemy is an amazing finisher. Both triple damage and 3 extra mana (5 if coming from Calm) can ensure you cast everything in your hand and end the fight at least a couple turns earlier.
Establishment is situational, but if you have Retain-heavy deck, you will never lack energy after casting it.
Master Reality doubles energy from all your Miracles created after it, that alone makes it return its cost many times over. Drawing one more card from Insight is pretty big as well.
Alpha can be your only offensive card in a lean defensive deck, depending on your cards/relic you can cast Omega on turn 2 already, especially against enemies that start the combat weak. Then you just turtle and win.

[Sinsling]

kanarienvogel a écrit :

Ragnarok with some damage-enhancments (either Strength or Wreath of Flame) and multiplied by Divinity can one-shot a lot of things, including bosses.
Conjure Blade is THE finisher in Deva Form/multiple Vaults combo, where you destroy enemy before they get a single turn.
Wish is good simply for ramping up a lot of gold. That's 30 gold per fight, 60 if you have Omniscience to spare on weaker enemies.
Omniscience can make beastly Deva form. Or Conjure Blade without spending all your mana. A chain of Omnisciences can play all your key setup cards (Deva Form, Devotions etc) on turn1 *twice*
Blasphemy is an amazing finisher. Both triple damage and 3 extra mana (5 if coming from Calm) can ensure you cast everything in your hand and end the fight at least a couple turns earlier.
Establishment is situational, but if you have Retain-heavy deck, you will never lack energy after casting it.
Master Reality doubles energy from all your Miracles created after it, that alone makes it return its cost many times over. Drawing one more card from Insight is pretty big as well.
Alpha can be your only offensive card in a lean defensive deck, depending on your cards/relic you can cast Omega on turn 2 already, especially against enemies that start the combat weak. Then you just turtle and win.

Wait... hold up. I didnt even think about omnisciencing omniscience...

My mind is blown. =O

[Dusk_Army]

^It's great, but rather impractical outside of Hoarder dailies. You also have to be a bit careful about what order you select the cards in.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

It's beautiful if you can find two copies, but, like, that's a big if. Do keep it in mind if you find Dolly's Mirror.

[DrQuint]

>Establishment bad

I have 6 GB of spongebob memes and not a single one of them, or even several combinations of them, are good enough to describe how stupid statement is.


>Deva Form is marginally useful, if you have NO energy relic.

Wait, I get it. This is a "say something wrong to get the right answer" situation, isn't it?

[Khor]

Dusk_Army a écrit :

^It's great, but rather impractical outside of Hoarder dailies. You also have to be a bit careful about what order you select the cards in.

It doesn`t mean much, but i checked and i had multiple Omnisciences in nearly 10% of my games

faceplant712 a écrit :

[
I really hope you're just playing semantics here because if you keep blaspheming against the archetypes, they will surely strike you down in the precise way that will most devastate you personally: the destruction of all your steam emoticons.

Who told you that?
Emoticon are my secret weakness

[arek75]

Bopple a écrit :

There are 17 rare cards for Watcher.

Among them, Alpha, Blasphemy, Conjure Blade, Establishment, Master Reality, Omniscience, Ragnarok, Wish are worthless. 8 of them in total.

They either consume too much cost, turns or don't do anything significant. Actually, they are not only worthless or non-synergistic, but harmful. They are curse cards.

===

Deva Form is marginally useful, if you have NO energy relic.

===

Spirit Shield and Devotion are fine.

===

Brilliance, Vault, Judgment are good.
Lesson Learned is excellent.
Scrawl and Deus Ex Machina are amazing.

These cards work great in almost any build or have great synergies in some builds.

===

I know you cannot balance every card. But half of rare cards are total trash? That makes no sense at all.

I've played Watcher (some) since she was in Beta, and have watched top players like Jorbs play her...and can honestly say: All of those cards have their place - below are my thoughts on these cards:

Blasphemy - it retains when upgraded, which is important, and gets you into Divinity stance which, if timed right, is a one-turn kill for most enemies, negating Blasphemy's downside. In other words, you use it when you can end the fight with it, and not before.

Wish - extremely versaitle, it gets you extra damage if you need that, defense if that's what you need....and gold when you don't need the other effects, which helps you improve your deck long-term. Early wish is actually amazing (think going into every shop with 300+ gold).

Omniscience: The ability to pick a card out of your deck and play it twice is incredibly powerful. There are quite a few of her cards that can really be abused that way.

Alpha/Beta/Omega: This is actually pretty good in hallway fights if you have the block to back it up. Pair it up with Omniscience for some real hilarity (Omniscience + Omega + good block == dead *anything*, including heart). Note that Omega does not scale with your stance, so you basically want Calm entries and Empty * exits (for extra energy) if you're building around Alpha.

Establishment requires a different build than the standard stance-dance near-infinite build (which will get you killed against Time Eater and possibly The Heart anyway). Instead of building that way, grab things like Protect, Deceive Reality, Perseverence, etc, for defense, and then grab Windmill Strike for damage. Get Wallop while you're at it, for both front-loaded damage and block (for fights like Gremlin Nob). The way you win here is to get Establishment out and get Windmill Strike in hand, then block and wait until Windmill Strike is just straight lethal. Establishment also pairs well with Battle Hymn (= a free smite every turn in exchange for waiting one turn to start).

Master Reality works well with the previous setup (watch-and-wait watcher), which tends to use Deceive Reality. It also works very well with Carve Reality/Battle Hymn, Study, Pray, and other Watcher cards that create cards....also imagine what would happen if you get Dead Branch (which is actually better on Watcher than it is on Ironclad, since Watcher has baked-in exhaust, and lots of cards that exhaust).

Conjure Blade is good if upgraded and/or you get Chemical X. It can also be OK for a watch-and-wait watcher if it's offered and you don't get offered Windmill Strike.

Ragnarok is good for a Divinity-focused watcher, because of the way it scales, but it's more for the watch-and-wait playstyle than the stance-dance playstyle.

As for Deva Form being only useful with no engergy relic, it's a good alternative to Establishment for the watch-and-wait watcher because it means that once you get to the kill turn, you (mostly) no longer have to worry about energy. It does require an upgrade, tho, which makes it less useful, and it isn't that useful if you have Establishment.

Also remember, rare cards aren't always rare because they're super-powerful, but rather because they're build-defining, situational or can create "broken" builds if you get them together, so one or both is rare to make such a combo harder to build.

--Arek75

[sandman25dcsss]

Upgraded establishment + upgraded battle hymn (both cards become innate) is a win condition. Calling such cards worthless because some better cards exist is like calling almost all ironclad cards worthless because of dead branch + corruption combo.

Ps. 12 damage for 0 energy cannot be beaten by non-zero cost cards. You don't need any setup, the cards wait for wrath/divinity/vulnerable and deal 200+ damage in a single turn.

[Sze]

two omniscience (one bottled) + two wish = 32 plated armor first round

[silentclashes]

I actually think that Omniscience is pretty good paired with wish or just other Power based cards in general. The gold part of Wish is a bit useless but the strength and plated armour can be really helpful where you need consistent block. One of my best watcher runs actually comprised of Omniscience which actually kinda carried me.

[bulbatrs]

silentclashes a écrit :

I actually think that Omniscience is pretty good paired with wish or just other Power based cards in general. The gold part of Wish is a bit useless but the strength and plated armour can be really helpful where you need consistent block. One of my best watcher runs actually comprised of Omniscience which actually kinda carried me.

gold is amazing. in easy fights you get gold, in harder fights you go for strength or block, through block park is kinda weak on wish as you get a lot more out of strength per energy vs block with watcher.