@Yuri:

"A skilled player should always play his heavy hitter around opponent's DR! This is the first point."

I completely agree with this point -- so I'm sure you see that when your entire hand is SoA and bypasses most DR, it makes that element of skill unnecessary. Impressive cards like Pegh, Spiaghi, Uranus etc etc just become mediocre pinch-hitters. Maybe the opponent can work them into a tricky winning strategy or a 3-round win, but more likely, they will become a liability instead.

"Many clans can make much more damages even when being blocked, such as La Junta, Jungo, Berzerk, frozen, FPC(dealing 11-12 damage is a piece of cake with 2 proper hitters without any fury)"

While technically true this argument is a bit misleading.
Take a look at Yoshida. Same stats as Rolph. 2 damage bonus instead of SoA, not bad. But what happens against a typical 2* DR with -3 min something ability? Rolph simply hits harder.

"Many clans refuse to let you win 2 rounds easily or hit with fury, such as Montana, All Stars, Rescue, Uppers or even Sentinel, Sakrohm, Junkz, I can hear they are laughing at poor Z3ro D34d, wanna win with low pills? come on"

Funny -- SoA is the biggest weakness of most of the clans you named, as they are ability reliant. And of course, Rolph the round winner only makes it easier for GHEIST to secure two rounds against them.

I think some people are looking at bans and evaluating cards based on their individual stats/abilities...

doesnt really work that way. several bans are bans that are simply there to weaken the clan rather than to remove a OP card.

people should also consider that many of these bans happened prior to 14 life. the difference between 6 dmg and 5 dmg then was enormous!

I think what UR has to do is release a few of these cards and see what happens. They did it with Marco and Zatman and it turned out ok. Theyve done it with Sledg right? and that unbanning is good but losing their SOB and SOA has proven to be more devastating than loosing one of their nukes

@Yuri

GHEIST sort of lack that 'round winner' card in ELO and let's be honest, that is solely what is keeping them in check. They are still a heavily played clan as SOA is just that valuable a bonus to have!

Why do you think that Draheera, Toro and Rolph (Arkn ftw standing alone) all got banned...they beat cards fairly easily and give GHEIST that instant 2 hit advantage...and with the clans overall better than average damage 2 hits is all they really need against most clans to seal the deal!

Not many other clans have 2* that all hit for 4 damage (aside from the actual damage clans themselves), not to mention a 3* that hit's for 5 and is almost irreducible. This makes their 2 hit win strategy alot more prominent and threatening...suddenly an early hit from 'poor zero dead' can spell game over if Rolph is sitting there happily awaiting his time to shine

All in all I vote NO to the unbanning of Rolph....even unbanning the weakest, Draheera, would push GHEIST back into heavy domination.....again

@ Oracle:
I think Rescue is hands-down the most broken clan in the game. I would have no problem if it just fell off the face of the earth. They have the strongest bonus in the game on the condition that they can only be played mono. That means if you give them a weakness, it can't be offset by another clan. If you give them too many stable cards, they quickly become OP. They are almost impossible to balance.

I don't think they're "bad" in the current meta exactly. I just think that with Sledg being unbanned, people forgot that Cliff exists. Cliff may look less solid than Sledg on paper, but in reality, he's by far their best 5. If you chose to pill up against whatever Rescue opens with, you have to pill at least hard enough to beat bonus -- no matter what, you are at a pill disadvantage and you've activated Cliff's revenge. As for Sledg, against all but 4 clans, he's just a slightly crappier Aurora.

@ ghelas

'Funny -- SoA is the biggest weakness of most of the clans you named, as they are ability reliant.'

I am afraid you are deeply wrong,

It is one of the common sense that Montana, All Stars, Rescue, Uppers are extremely bonus reliant clans in the game and have upper hands against GHEIST. To prove that is simple: in heavy SOA weeks you found more of them but less of Jungo, La Junta, and votrex. Most of these cards would rather abandon their ability than bonus, Don, Dorian, Ghoub, Sigurd, Sledg, etc, and you forgot the existence of Karen, Glosh, Beverly, Vinny, Flinch, Kyle. How could SOA be the biggest weakness of these clans? And where do you put our SOB clans?

@Yuri:

Bro I'm incapable of being deeply wrong. It's a medical condition, it's very rare, and I am currently undergoing rigorous treatment. So please don't joke.

Err, seriously though, maybe it's just my personal experience, but I feel like I've noticed the exact opposite. When the meta is a bit of a mishmash, people seem to gravitate towards attack manip clans. But about 3/4 of their staples rely on ability damage, so when attack manip gets prominent, people gravitate towards SoA clans. Reducing most of a hand to a pathetic 2-4 damage can completely ruin your opponent's day. The round-winning advantage doesn't matter too much at that point, because a good hit from a SoA clan character can be worth two hits from Sakrohm, Montana, or Uppers. We should both know it's not that easy to win 3 rounds against a good player. So who will win the game, the guy who hit with Dorian and Oxen, or the guy who hit with Ellie and Tuck?

As far as SoB clans, I feel they are a bit shaky. NM have a great low-star half. Piranas now have some decent damage cards and of course have had good pill/attack manip for a long time. But my go-to SoB clan for half-decks has become FPC. Futoshi and Shifou in a half-deck can help provide the kind of stability that SoB clans used to offer without sacrificing damage. Those guys fight many 5* round winners pill for pill.

Part of why I rate Uppers so high is that many of their topend characters are neither extremely dependent on ability OR bonus. Nellie is still a good 4* against SOB. And she can still hit hard enough to be a game winner against SOA. They just have such a great and always relevant bonus, and average to topend abilities as well.

@ghelas

'The round-winning advantage doesn't matter too much at that point, because a good hit from a SoA clan character can be worth two hits from Sakrohm, Montana, or Uppers. '

Thank you for your reply, but finally, you got yourself into a paradox, back to the topic-Rolph
If you don't care about Gheist's round-winning disadvantage, it makes no sense to sacrifice damage for power manipulation.

This is exactly the reason why I think Rolph should be unbanned, and what GHEIST needs most is DAMAGE but not Round winning advantage!

I admit that SOA does block huge damages but if you deal even less damage it means failure. let's say, Rolph + Leviatonn vs Dallas+ Randy, you block 2 lifes from Dallas, but you lost the fight. vs Cliff + Tina you block 2 damages, and lost the fight, vs Don + Gianfranco you lost the fight. And these cards are all often found in the meta game.