Is Killing Machine's SS too strong?

[gamma]

I play as Lawtia and agree that a card that everyone who has a copy is running as soul card is a bad thing. Sadly for Lawtia, Killing Machine is a pretty good unit that has a high enough agility to stop the Gowen rush which Lawtia desperately needs. But because it's an even better soul card (and also stops the Gowen rush) it rarely gets played.

I think it needs to be changed to a Lawtia only buff and give ~25 defense. As a Lawtia player, I have one unit with an attack above 30 and, you guessed it, it's Killing Machine. More than 25 defense on a single unit suddenly takes that unit from "it would be nice to half a way to break through his defense" to "I will lose if I cannot break through his defense". Maybe Lawtia Level x 5 defense on a random friendly unit and give him 2 LP? You could still stack Killing Machine but it would require precision instead of hey, I have unit alive why not make him invincible.

[Tenkai]

NAH Killing Machine's SS isn't too strong, it just DESTROYS the whole game, even more when you have him 3 times...:

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[Aether]

I've just recently gotten into the non-beginner arena (whatever it is called) andjust about every deck that I have lost against, I have lost against because of the opponent having this card. There have been games where I would be controlling the board and nearing a win and the opponent whips out one of these and I can't do anything about it for X number of turns giving my opponent the chance to win the game. I really don't think one soul card should have this kind of power. Seriously, this is getting kinda ridiculous when I know nearly every opponent I'm going to fight is going to have one of these and all I can really do against it is rely on luck. I am starting to think about quitting this game, it was fun in the beginning, but now with my opponents basically having a "I win the game card", the fun is starting to leave the game.

[Gigantorus]

I don't think the card needs to be nerfed directly. I do think that more options for countering it are needed for some decks. Falkow ofcourse has the "counter everything" card called Return. I think Gowen has many options to counter it . But Refess has to rely on very slow cards to beat it, and they really don't have any good offensive magic. Lawtia players have many penetrating cards which they can use.

The only changes I would make to it are:
If a unit auto-revives, the defense bonus is gone.
Buff Refess.

[Tenkai]

Well it's just lost my last three match and guess what? They all had at least 2x LeBeau SC...
TBH I dunno if I should continue to play this game, maybe just take a break until I get that card myself...

And like someone already mentioned earlier, you simply can't beat that without Return:

Killing Machine in a LAWTIA deck used on either Zombie Lord (50 Hp/30Att/1Agi/1Rng) or Animate Dead (20Hp/30Att/1Agi/1Rng)

Both can fully regen the HP upon death with SP...

[DanTheTimid]

Why does everyone seem to think Return is such a great counter to this card? It only works on level 3 or less cards and one of the most popular to play it on, Zombie Lord, is level 4. In general if your playing against falkow your going to try to get your Killing Machine on a level 4 or higher, regardless of which one it is. Once its on a level 4 or higher, Return is completely useless against it. In theory if you can keep them from keeping any level 4+ cards out when the KM goes off sure they might have to put it on something level 3 or less, but that's often easier said then done as they can hide it in the back row and then move it forward once the buff is in place.

Whether you can beat it or not, at least for me, the card is no fun to face, which should also be a knock against it. Games are supposed to be fun, cards that make the game un-fun should be avoided when possible.

How about in addition to its current text its soul skill also gains "This unit gains the start skill: Lose 20 Hp"
Or instead in addition it says "Destroy all other friendly units and reduce your SP to 0"
Or how about instead of its normal text being the number of cards in your cemetary x 5 its "half the number of lawtia cards in your cemetery rounded down x 5"

[arkbeetle]

How about in addition to its current text its soul skill also gains "This unit gains the start skill: Lose 20 Hp"
Or instead in addition it says "Destroy all other friendly units and reduce your SP to 0"
Or how about instead of its normal text being the number of cards in your cemetary x 5 its "half the number of lawtia cards in your cemetery rounded down x 5"

I definetly agree 100%

[AnnaTheRed]

NAH Killing Machine's SS isn't too strong, it just DESTROYS the whole game, even more when you have him 3 times...:

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I am sorry, but I had to remove your image.

Please everyone, DO NOT POST SCREEN SHOTS, unless you're reporting a bug.

Just like Logress mentioned before about posting screen shots in the other topic, I don't want people to get in the habit of posting other people's Iczer names, Cemeteries and Soul Cards on the forums without their permission, for obvious reasons.

Thank you

AnnaTheRed

[Logress]

About Lebeau, the Japanese are doing some balance tests, so we'll see what they say about it. In the meantime, if you want to diffuse the Lebeau/Zugataroza threat without designing your whole deck around, it you need can do it with just one "instant fix" card, that solves the problem after it exists, requires no comboing, and can be set off easily before the enemy even gets to go. The best ones are Dispel and Assassin as a Soul Card. Dispel is totally worth it, even if you're not Refess, and a Soul Skill can be used by anyone. Yeah, neither is a starter set but neither is big Z, so it all requires a little luck. And if Animated Deads are your problem, Flesh Recycle really is the miracle cure. Actually, considering the number of key Lawtia cards that have low HP, regeneration, or 30 HP and lose 10 HP at the beginning of their turn, no card disrupts Lawtia strategy like it. If you find yourself being pounded by Lawtia, I'd seriously consider throwing one or two in if you can. During the mid to late game, you'll be happy to spend 4SP on it.

[DanTheTimid]

Dispel has been discussed as a possible counter, though if you really NEED to run any card in your deck just to counter a single other card that generally is proof alone that the card your countering needs to be toned down. The issue though as you touched on is that its not a starter card nor is it a common or uncommon, but in fact a rare (3 star). That means the odds of you acquiring one are very low, ridiculously low if you don't spend any real money, and for those who don't have a visa/mastercard spending real money isn't even an option they have available to them.

Now if you wanted to say, gift a single copy of Dispel to everyone whose played so far, I wouldn't complain and it might decrease Killing Machine abuse a little bit, but as things stands its not a viable option for the VAST majority of players since the vast majority quite frankly don't have one and don't have a viable means to get one in the near future.

I've personally thought about using the Assassin soul skill, to be sure as long as you can keep atleast one unit out it will completely stop both Killing Machine and the revivers, but timing its activation at the right time is even trickier then using Killing Machine (you need to not only make sure you have a friendly unit out, but that it doesn't go off before they have a killing machine'd unit out). Whats more, against decks that don't run killing machine, its quite frankly not a very good soul card for the average deck. Its terrible against swarm decks and often hurts you just as much if not more then an opponent if you yourself are not using a low SP cost unit swarm deck. Your once again weakening your deck just to stop a single card, which again speaks to the fact that that single card is probably too strong if such a thing is even being considered.

Again I don't necessarily hate such a powerful effect existing, there are ways it can be stopped, I just hate that its so easy to pull off, something that provides that large of an advantage should require much more set up or have a much greater disadvantage to the user. The fact that many of the best ways to stop it aren't available to the average user doesn't help things either.