SideboardsStrongly against. As already mentioned, some elements gain a huge advantage - unfortunately those which you already find in the top places. In comparison, many other elements will struggle to find any use of it in many decks, other than maybe adjusting a bit damage or quanta in case of denial and co.
Market PricesIn favour. My suggestion from last war still holds place, and was also suggested here earlier: In-element discount. I am unsure if this will be enough for teams like
to not be screwed over their useful and therefore expensive support cards, but will still help a lot. Basically, you could think of giving element-rated discounts, e.g. giving a higher discount for
and a lower one for
.
Higher discardsWhen I first read this, I thought "Oh no, please don't kill late-game decks", but then I saw your suggestion with additional vault discard, which is a great idea. Another option brought up in this topic was to reduce the initial points given, which is important depending on the in-element vault-discount you want to give, in order to counteract against bigger vaults. So, I am in favour of using both of these ideas.
5-player-teamsAs long as we keep 5 matches per element per round, we should be fine - however, if the participant number is dropping further, not forcing Generals to take a 6th player seems valid. Maybe you can give Gen's the option to take 6 players for paying more points, unsure who would use this, though. I am not a fan of auction for different reasons anyway, but I know most of the community wants it, so I will accept it.
Upgrade AllocationsAlthough I hoped to see a bit more upgrades being allowed, making the Lieutenant role better was a very needed change.
Soldier Boost changesTinkerer: I am still in favour of the pends-rule. Tinkerer should not be the role to mainly use other elements with a little splash of your own, but force you to be creative. And honestly, 25-33% will kill all decks but the Ghostmare listed in the opening post, so I don't see much of a difference, other than having a less straight-forward rule.
Mercenary: I like this change. Limiting it to 4 elements seems like a good number, hurting the flexibility of Grabbows while not outright banning them, but giving options to trios and maybe even late-War quartetts.
Gambler: Not forcing to predict the exact outcome would help this, too. I have this in mind: Choose to either predict the right outcome (victory/defeat, for 1 Relic) or the exact result (3-1 etc., for 3 Relics) of your match. This choice has to be made in the deckbuilding phase, so going for the second choice and saying 3-1 and then winning 3-0 will not grant the relic for the first choice. 1 Relic may seem low, but can be used for the little buff if you think your deck can win without further boosts, although this faces competition from the salvage boost.
Talking of salvaging, please add the possibility of transmuting at least a few cards in 1:1 ratio. It really sucks to be in an element that almost never faces their own cards, while other elements face them every round. This may not seem like a huge thing, but adds up a lot during the event. Simply allowing it for 1 victory per round would already help a lot in this regard, without making regular in-element salvage any less useful.
Granting RelicsUsually in favour, but strongly against benefiting teams that already perform well - the term "positive feedback" comes to mind. Other (or better to say: more) ways to get Relics are still a good thing, which can be done by buffing the Gambler role or maybe allowing a team to either switch some vault cards for Relics (preferably with a cap per round, but still expensive enough to make teams think twice) or deny all their salvage from one deck per round to get 1-2 Relics, depending on how many they would've salvaged.
Thanks for Warmasters at putting this up early!
