I think Pestering Haunt is more oppressive than Deteriorate (and actually, is the most oppressive card in the Black starter). It’s not limited to units, it can’t be mitigated by Flagbearer / resist / Free Speech / Newsman, and when supported by the Graveyard (or when attacking something with no attack value not protected by a Tower), it can hit something every turn (for free!), which makes it much more difficult to arrange a patrol / backline to survive other aggression, much less prepare for a counterattack. The only ways Blue can defend against it are to proactively kill it (not easy to do in the early game of this matchup), or to target it with Porkhand Magistrate (generally not a good value proposition, and difficult to set up). Building a Tower and breaking the Graveyard (also not particularly easy) can discourage the Haunt’s attacks temporarily, but can’t stop it from hitting when it really hurts, so most of the time, you just have to try not to present any tempting targets, which is extremely limiting. Especially Mirror Illusions. Not being able to use Mirror Illusions to generate threat and/or pad the patrol without burning cards is particularly rough in the face of all those discard mechanics, not to mention making it extremely difficult to protect the Newsman from StW/Exeecutioners, which in turn creates an over-reliance on Free Speech, which is tied to a hero whose abilities are effectively all suppressed and has practically no attack power… that Haunt is such a thorn in my side.
It’s true that Deteriorate has some advantages… it can deal with flying units and pop Illusions (sorry, Aven), but losing a $1 Scavenger or Technician to a Deteriorate, even at $0, isn’t that bad. And, it can reduce a unit’s attack so it can be dog-piled with reduced losses or modify the behavior of StW/Executioner, but the cases where that makes a significant difference seem uncommon enough that I think it’s healthy to have those options in the game, albeit probably not at $0. Still, I’m very skeptical of any change-list that nerfs Deteriorate but not Haunt… and moreover, I’m very skeptical of any change-list that doesn’t nerf Haunt.
As for Vandy’s spells, I honestly don’t have an opinion on what, if anything, should be done with them, as I consider the fact that with Vandy and her spells completely removed, the matchup felt more or less even rather than notably favorable to Blue suggests that some other balance issues exist that should be addressed, and I’d rather judge Vandy’s spells in the context of those changes.
Sirlin’s Deteriorate idea is certainly interesting, but I feel like it would make Black’s options less interesting and make it harder for Blue to use Spectral Flagbearers to defend against it, because normally you want Flagbearers to guard against multiple targeting threats and provide a payoff when they die. The upside, of course, is that it would limit Deteriorate’s effectiveness against players who aren’t attacking, and often early game Blue can’t afford (or even manage) to attack Black, so maybe that could be a strategy for nerfing Black vs. Blue with less impact on Black vs. everything else? Somehow, I have an uneasy feeling that tells me not to be confident about that, though. Like, maybe it’s not such a good idea to design around the assumption that Blue can’t attack Black? I dunno.
Patrol as below
Base HP: 14
Squad Leader: Vandy (2/3+1armor lvl 1)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Squad Leader: Building Inspector (1/1A) $1 tax
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20