Debilitator Alpha

So, help me out here…when would anybody going Peace ever tech this card? It is expensive, and compared to Peace’s other tech 2 options (chiefly Drill Sergeant), it just seems a bit…meh.

Am I missing something obvious? When put together with a purple start deck, he is made marginally better by Battle Suits, but then wouldn’t you prefer to tech a Hyperion for the same price and stats, but with added haste and card draw?

The best use for this card I can think of is to help counter a heavy 1/1 token spam strategy (frogs, skeletons etc), but that is pretty niche usage…

Has anyone seen this card being used well, where Drill Sergeant wouldn’t have been a better choice?

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I can definitely see the value of him in the abstract - since if he’s SQL (and why would you ever do anything else with him, unless it gave you an important hero/tech building/base kill?) the opponent needs seven attack to get past him, assuming only one unit attacks him. If two team up to take him down, you’ll need eight attack across the two attackers - and each will take 4 damage! So it seems pretty great if you need strong defence against direct attacks.

But at the same time, I agree that he seems weak compared to the rest of Peace Tech 2, particularly the Garrison/DS combo. And expensive, as you say. Also he’s not much good if the opponent has a stealth or a way to remove patrollers directly (which there are plenty of). I also have never seen a game where he was teched. But I’m sure there are some games where he provides good value - with 5 different Tech 2s in your chosen spec, it’s only natural that at least one of them should have only niche uses.

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How about this: would the wording on the card allow the DA in squad lead to remove 2 attack if you have another DA in the backfield? The requirements seem to be met as it doesn’t specify which DA needs to be in squad lead, only a DA.

If this is allowed, then I could see a use for this card! He would be a nightmare to deal with, especially if he got boot camped.

Rules lawyers?

Nope. No card game in the world has ever worked that way. When a card uses it’s name in the rules text, it means “this specific card” and not “any card with this name.”

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A straw was grasped!

Has anyone ever seen this teched and used well?

I guess the idea is that it is supposed to allow you a turn or two of very strong defence before the garrison combo goes off. So the question is whether it makes achieving the combo more or less reliable than simply teching more cards that support the combo. idk, I am terrible at Blue.

Debilitator alpha effectively has 3-5 more hp then is actually printed on the card. +1 for squad leader armor & +1 for each unit attacking. This level of tankyness gets absurd against token strats.

Tiny basilisk can’t kill it. Units that deal damage as -1/-1 runes are less effective. Crashbarrow needs Draaks frenzy to kill it.

4 attack is actually enough to kill attackers. Take a look at how many tech II units actually have more than 4 hp. You’d be surprised. Combine with Elite Training for an even better tank that now kills almost anything, including flyers! Alternately, use drill sergeants to boost him instead of Elite Training.

I’m serious. 5 gold is a lot but everything else in Peace tech II is about 3 gold. Maybe instead of a second garrison you grab this guy.

Badly structured thought drippings aside, this guy is a tank. You tech him when you really want a tank, like the opponent being really aggressive. Good against unit spam, bad against instant removal(like doom grasp).

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Listen to @Shax, folks. Debilator Alpha is a very effective wall. If you go Peace tech 2 and Bigby, you can use DA to soak up all their tech0 and token attackers while Community Service ensures they don’t have more effective attackers. Then your opponent has to commit to using heroes against DA.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to mention sometimes you can’t play Garrison because some mean guy like Vir will take it from you. Or Jaina might burn it to the ground.

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Glad to see strategy threads about Flagstone Dominion :smile_cat:
That’s not a great card, but as there are few ways as Peace to counter Glorious Ninjas, yeah I can imagine someone tech it sometime.

I just mean it’s not as bad as Guardian of the Gates.

Don’t tech it as Mono-Blue thought : an ability that has no effect against heroes and against Tech III units means redundancy with Quince and Bigby’s spells and abilities ! Trust me you don’t want that !
I’m not familiar with [Past]/Peace/Anarchy, but I suppose that rewinding hasty Glorious Ninjas is a bad idea ?
Or maybe just enduring them until Pirate Gunship is out may be a good idea… IDK

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Anyone thinking of combining these how can x beat/how is x useful threads into a resource thread dedicated to the correct use and situations to use certain units/colors? In recent days I’ve seen the advantages and shortcomings of this guy, rickety mine, kotc, and Blue vs Black/upgrades discussed, and these may very well be helpful to others wondering about the same questions.

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I think that this would be very helpful. It would also be nice if there was some way of structuring the discussion so it’s easier to follow than in the rules/questions thread.

One the one hand, I would love to have a discussion of tactics and strategy attached to each card in the card data base, on the other hand I wouldn’t want the card data base to become cluttered. I don’t know if there could be a way to create an opt-in strategy layer in the carddb for those who want it that wouldn’t clutter the experience for those who only use the database for rules lookup.

There is a set of “card of the week” articles on this forum - although it seems to have died? It wasn’t terrible detailed on strategy, either - but it was a start.

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There were those articles, but also threads like this one that discuss individual cards that seem especially useless/problematic, and many strategy articles from the Maxband Argagarg opening (though that one is structured enough to be preserved in the official resources) to Black Bone Collector rushes to time rune openings to variations on “Blue just dies to everything what do I do??!?”, all buried in the archive and threatening to be lost to time. Many of which didn’t generate much discussion before they died out, but are still valuable resources and conversation starters.

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You can just create a new thread that links to the threads you’re interested in consolidating. That way you get the advantage of having everything in one place for easy reference, but don’t clutter things up with a giant mega-thread where everyone is talking past each other.

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Indestructible > swift strike, so you just beat Ninjas with Hardened Mox (or Nullcraft + runes).

My personal opinion is that DA is useless, because yiu are always in one of 3 scenarios:
You are ahead, and would prefer something other than a 5 cost warm body.
You are behind, and losing to Heroes/Fliers/Tech 3, none of which are hindered significantly by DA
You are behind and facing a swarm of smaller bodies (tokens, garrison/past fueled hordes, etc). Your opponent has some spell or plan for getting past a mid-sized defender (otherwise they would just lose to a string of 3 cost 3/5 units or some such, which any deck can produce), and just use that answer on your DA, at greater profit than if it was just a tech 2 Iron Man equivalent. Flagstone Spy is a better patrolling defense against a token strategy than DA, since it will take down two of them with him, and he can’t be eliminated by their removal.

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What if you’re neither behind or ahead?

If you’re at parity, then you want something that will break parity, like literally any other Peace Tech II card.

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I love the concept of conditional abilities which depend on Patrol Zone placement - they emphasize one of the best new mechanics in the game. Therefore Codex should have a lot more things which have abilities along the lines of Debilitator Alpha, and those things should happen at the Hero, Spell and Tech I level where they can be parts of combos and might happen before you need to be teching your win conditions.

As for power level, Codex’s card list is so compartmentalized that it is trivial to see how it compares to all the other $5 Tech II units in the game:

[list]
[]Oversized Rhinocerous - Rhino kills Debilitator with HP left over regardless of patrol zone
[
]Ogre Recruiter - Whichever unit is in a patrol slot defense wins a straight up fight. Debilitator’s ability is easier to set up, but Ogre’s is more generally impactful.
[]Rememberer - Debilitator wins in a straight up fight, but Remember’s ability is all card advantage meaning that the Peace player is now on the offense with a defensive unit.
[
]Hyperion - Unless either is in the Elite slot, these have to tussle twice to mutual. If the Hyperion is the attacker, that’s +2 card advantage for the Present Player.
[]Tricycloid - Even against a SQL Alpha, the Tricycloid gets to mutual with it AND do another point to something else.
[
]Void Star 5/4 - While this is probably flying over the Debilitator to to 9 points directly to your base, let’s assume the Future player doesn’t spend 4 more gold than the Peace player – in which case it’s possible that it might just take two turns and no extra gold to kill Debilitator taking zero damage in return.
[]Mind Parry Monk - whichever unit is in a patrol slot wins a straight up fight. The monk’s ability requires you to have additional units to benefit, but isn’t defeated by sidelining.
[
]Harvest Reaper - If and only if Debilitator is in SQL it mutuals with the Reaper in two attacks. If Debilitator is in Elite, it mutuals with Reaper in one attack, but a point of Overpower damage gets through. If the Reaper is in a patrol slot, then it outright wins.
[*]Grounded Guide - Debilitator wins in any one on one where the Guide is neither in SQL no Elite, in which case the Finesse player gets a draw.
[/list]

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Every time someone criticises a card I suddenly become really determined to win a bunch of games using that card.

I’m the champion of low tier cards.

That’s why Rickety Mine is my favourite.

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I want to like this more than once… even though my Rickety Mine just got destroyed before I could exhaust it in a CAWS game. :frowning:

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