As a follow-up to my previous post regarding the base statlines a vanilla creature has, let's discuss how much stats card text theoretically costs. Card text refers to anything in the body section of a card, including keywords like Blitz and Confused, as well as any effects like healing. Naturally, cards with beneficial card text like Blitz or "Heal a friendly creature for 2" will have worse stats as compared to the vanilla creature, while cards with detrimental effects like "Afterlife: Your opponent summons a random creature from their void" will have better stats than the vanilla creature. The reason is simple - you would simply pick the vanilla creature otherwise. So what do these keywords actually cost?

Let's dive right in!

Reference: The Vanilla Creature Statline Table

In this post, all comparisons are done against the stats for a vanilla creature. Although not a perfect way of comparison, for consistency and convenience I will usually use the total stat points (Attack + Health points) when comparing 2 cards. For example, a 2/6 (8 stat points) is said to have 2 extra stat points over a 3/3 (6 stat points). To see which creatures have the vanilla stats, do refer to my previous post!

Keywords

Let's start off with the biggest category, keywords. Keywords are common effects that are seen in many cards, so to reduce the number of words used in the card text, the game designers opted to shorten them into one or two words. Since some keywords don't have enough data points, some of these estimations may not be entirely accurate.

Blitz

Creatures with Blitz can attack enemy creates, but not gods, the turn they are summoned.

Interestingly enough, there are only 2 cards that only have Blitz with no other card text. For the Vanguard Axewoman, it costs 0.5 stat points, while for the Tavern Brawler, it costs 1 stat point. I think it's safe to say Blitz should cost between 0.5 - 1 stat point.

Confused

When a confused creature attacks, there is a 50% chance that it attacks a valid random character instead.

The three cards that have Confused as its sole card text are the Wild Hog, the Overgrown Rhino, and the Riled Ursine. Doing comparisons with the vanilla creature statline, we can see that Confused adds anywhere from 0 - 1 stats to the creature as a trade for random targeting. However, I think the Riled Ursine is strictly outclassed by the stronger Brazen Moose, which costs the same but has 6/6 in stats and Blessed. It's probably more accurate to say that a creature having Confused should have an extra 0.5 - 1 stat points.

Frontline

There are plenty of units with only Frontline as their sole card text. At this point, it gets a bit tricky. For creatures with 1 - 4 mana cost, Frontline costs about only 1 stat point, but that cost increases to about 2 - 4 stat points for units in the 5 - 7 mana cost range, with Minotaur Phalanx as an exception. It makes sense - Frontline gains value as the creature becomes bigger and is able to block more enemy creatures.

Deadly

Any amount of deadly damage will destroy a creature.

Deadly is tough to evaluate since the attack stat on the creature doesn't matter unless dealing with enemy creatures with armor. Fascinatingly, the 3-cost Harvest Arachne has more overall stats than the 4-cost Poison Peddler, but is less useful in general due to its lower health. Instead of comparing these cards using their total stat points, if we use their health points as a basis for comparison, Deadly seems to cost about 2 health points on average.

Flank

This creature can attack any character, ignoring frontline and backline, if any other character has attacked this turn.

Flank is a keyword that is seemingly thrown in for free for certain cards, costing 0 stat points for all these cards except for the Glider Assailant which has 1 stat less than its vanilla counterpart. Fair, since Flank's effect is usually not of much use in most circumstances.

Hidden

Hidden creatures cannot be attacked or targeted by enemy spells or abilities. They become unhidden when they attack.

Hidden comes in at a cost of 0.5 - 1 stat points for all mana costs here. A fair cost for a fair ability.

Protected

Protection stops the next source of damage this creature would take.

Protected, being a fairly strong keyword, comes in at a cost of 2 stat points for the lower mana cost cards, and 4 stat points for the Protected Deamonbot. Acceptable, since dealing with Protected often costs the opponent 2 mana to deal with it if they have a 1-damage god power or even more if they have to make inefficient trades against the Protected creature.

Blessed

When summoned, delve 3 blessed effects and play one.

Blessed, being a keyword that was only introduced in the Divine Order set, only has the Planetar Acolyte as a card that solely has the Blessed keyword. Since we can't draw much data just from one card, I looked at a few other Blessed cards and found out that Blessed tend to cost anywhere from 0 - 1 stat points, sometimes being thrown as a "freebie" with other effects.

Twin Strike

Can perform two attacks. You can't use both of those attacks on a god.

Twin Strike comes in at a cost of 2 stat points. Since Twin Strike gains value the more health the creature has, you might come across low-health Twin Strike creatures that seem to have this keyword for a lower stat cost, like the Nokkvi Pillager.

Ward

Blocks one instance of destroy, transform, sleep or non-attack damage from any opponent's source.

Only the Dryder Sailweaver has Ward as its sole keyword. Looking at a few other cards, it seems that Ward tends to cost about 0.5 stat points or bundled as a "freebie" with other effects.

Why are Some Cards Considered Overpowered (OP) or Underpowered (UP)?

With a rough estimation of the cost of each keyword, we can now see how these plays into cards with multiple keywords or effects.

Cards that people consider are OP often include a bunch of keywords that have synergy and/or cost less than their individual costs, while cards that are UP punch below their weight and have insufficient stats for the effects that they have.

Let's take a look at some of these cards.

Archangel Bruiser is commonly considered to be really strong in most War decks and bordering on OP. With 8 total stat points, you can say that it trades one stat point for the Blitz keyword. This means that its conditional Frenzy is given as a freebie, which turns out to be really strong on a creature with Blitz. It's no wonder that this card is getting a -1 health nerf soon.

Orcish Elite trades 2 attack points for both the Blitz and the Twin Strike keyword, making it a really good deal, since they would have cost 3 points individually.

Let's take a look at the almost-never played Wizened Warlock. At a 2/2 body for 3 mana, it trades off 3 stat points for Ward and the ability to deal 1 damage to a random enemy each turn. Due to how fragile it is, the ability to deal 1 damage to a random enemy is unlikely to be worth the 2 stat points, rendering it to be UP by today's standards.

The Runaway Trebuchet trades off a staggering 6 stat points for Blitz and a random 2 damage ping. Is the 2 damage ping worth that many stat points?

Card Evaluation is Tough

Even with all this analysis, it's hard to evaluate cards because they often cannot be evaluated correctly in a vacuum. In combo decks, the strength of individual cards matter much less compared to how it contributes to the overall win condition - you might be putting way under-statted cantrips (Draw 1 when played) just to draw your combo.

Some keywords and effects are just much stronger together. For example, the Blitz and Overkill keywords make a great combination. Blitz and Twin Strike are also great together. When these two keywords are given together on a creature, it may be fair to lower its stats even further to compensate for how strong the combination of keywords is.

Card strength is also dependent on the other cards available within that Faction. Its possible to have a strictly worse version of a card in another faction due to the synergies that it brings to the table.

For example, I recently saw in a Reddit discussion that compared these two cards, Just a Nibble and Revivification. Just a Nibble was going to get nerfed to heal only 5 health, and it didn't seem fair that Revivification wasn't receiving the same nerf. After all, Revivification cost one mana less, had no detrimental effect of having to deal 1 damage to your own creature, and even had a possible positive effect of adding a random Nature card to your hand. The reason why Just a Nibble was nerfed is simply that it was way too strong when combined with the other Death cards, like Siren of the Grave. Revivification had no synergies with any other Nature cards.

On top of all these, Legendary cards are also balanced differently. Since you can only include 1x of a Legendary in your deck, they are much less likely to be drawn on any given turn as compared to something that you've included 2x of. Due to this limitation, they are given better stats and effects as compared to regular cards. This is also the reason why people complain about decks that are chock full of legendaries - they simply are stronger.

Oddi is simply a better Raid Reveller - no questions asked.

I hope this breakdown of keyword cost did help open your eyes a little to how cards are evaluated. GU has many card effects which help to make the game more dynamic and fun, but it's also good to be aware of what you're trading off for those effects and keywords.

Post Header image source: Gods Unchained Media Kit

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