Not taking damage when attacking feels a lot like flying / swift strike / long-range… not something that jumps out and says, “Oh, that’s cool, I’m gonna build a Peace deck and try that!” Replacing the gold steal with a discard 1 card of choice is much more compelling, especially since gold steal is easy to play around, and Blue already has some from Tax Collector. Also, the discard would combo well with Reputable Newsman, making it more viable as an alternative to Free Speech.
Having Debilitator Alpha reduce all attackers, even those that bypass him, is much more appealing than its current state, though it’d still be somewhat niche in that it would be easily countered by any mechanic that pulls him out of SQL… though I guess allowing his ability to work elsewhere could be a bit OP. Just throwing it out there, but maybe having his ability trigger when he starts a turn as SQL and remain in effect until end of turn (maybe ending early if he’s killed…?). Another option would be to reduce the attack of anything that attacks him or bypasses him, that would give more flexibility to how to use him as a patroller, and even if he got sidelined, his ability wouldn’t feel completely useless because it would still protect him from attacks, just not anything behind him… and it would allow use of 2 Alphas to discourage sneaky things from ignoring them.
Air Hammer just feels weird… like, it’s pretty rare for 5 attack to be better than 4 when attacking a damaged building. That includes what, a base, Mythmaking enhanced Legendary buildings, and… I think that’s it? Regardless of the practicality of his ability, feeling like half of the bonus gets wasted most of the time is off-putting psychologically. And having to lead it with another damage source to break a tech building is more awkward than just having a Drill Sergeant dump a pair of runes on it (or on a Spy, or both), especially if you want to use more than one tech-breaker at a time… not to mention playing the Drill Sergeant is a much more attractive long-term value proposition than spending that card on a Traffic Director or General’s Hammer. Maybe reducing Air Hammer’s base attack and having the bonus attack also affect damaged units would be interesting? Not sure it’s actually a good idea, just throwing it out there as an option.
Drill Sergeant is good, but in most cases, not as good as Blooming Ancient… the notable exceptions being when running forecast or playing against Jail.
Patriot Gryphon is also the least attractive Gryphon, because it’s ability is very much a win-more ability, and as a general rule, I tend to prefer cards that push me from losing to winning over cards that push me from winning to winning faster. I’m not saying it isn’t good in its own way, but it’s definitely not my style.
Regarding Garrison being too good or not, I think it’s fair to point out that both Frozen and I likely have our opinions influenced by our experience with Black vs. Blue, within which Garrison seems all but mandatory to survive Black’s hand destruction, and yet still they get countered more often than not by being directly discarded, card-starved into not drawing them quickly enough to be helpful, or simply countered by building destruction. But the deployment cost is non-trivial as well… if you don’t immediately follow them up with sufficient weeny cannon-fodder, they’re just gonna get destroyed, and buildings don’t hit back, meaning they’re a bad investment if you can’t protect them. And if you’re playing a small number of expensive cards, chain card draw isn’t nearly as important… in that case you can get by just fine with any of the other sources of card draw in Codex, if you even need any at all. In the ideal case, Garrison provides incredible value, but in the average case, it’s not nearly as exciting. To be fair, the ideal case may be all that matters if you’re trying to prevent a single strategy from being overpowered (e.g. Garrison + free Virtuoso or Blood units), but all I’m trying to say is that I disagree with the premise that Garrison is so good that you should always use it when it’s available.
P.S. The idea of not having to choose a spec and being able to mix and match cards from my entire codex is incredibly exciting, more so than I think I can convey with text… but this is coming from the guy who proposed the “All Cards” variant, so there’s a slight chance I could be a statistical outlier.
Squad Leader: Porkhand Magistrate (2/3A)
Elite: L1 Sirus Quince (2/3)
Scavenger: Overeager Cadet (2/2)
Technician: Mirror Illusion (0/1)
Lookout: Spectral Aven (2/2) Flying, resist 1
Squad Leader: Porkhand Magistrate (2/3A)
Elite: L1 Sirus Quince (2/3)
Scavenger: Overeager Cadet (2/2)
Technician: Mirror Illusion (0/1)
Lookout: Spectral Aven (2/2) Flying, resist 1
Base HP: 18
Base HP: 18
Patrol as below
Base HP: 20
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout: