I realize that counterstrike is one of empire's themes but I have already played a few games where empire has multiple counterstrike units (2 to 3) in each of the other zones after one of the zones is burning. Needless to say, generally games like that go to the empire. With the new card in this weeks preview, the empire will be getting even more counterstrike and that has me got me thinking that maybe they are getting too much too quickly.

I love playing as empire and think counterstrike is a very good ability, but it seems like there are currently very few ways to effectively work around it other than slamming wave-after-wave of units at the problem and taking massive losses. To me, it seems like empire has an over saturation of this ability and it seems like it could pretty easily keep widening the gap between them and other races if the new cards with this ability keep coming out at the rate that they have been (this is based off my experiences with 1x copy of everything. YMMV).

I would like to see an ability that strikes as the same time as counterstrike but have it work for offensive units. It would be a nice solution as it wouldn't be a direct counter to counterstrike (such as a card that makes all units lose counterstrike until the end of turn) and would also provide a boost to agro decks against big late game creatures and creatures with thoughness.

What is your take on counterstrike? Is it already threatening to become a problem? What kinds of solutions should be made to help balance it?

Counterstrike is fine. Currently there are plenty of ways to deal with it in Destruction Decks. There's lots of removal and direct damage and corruption.

Counterstrike is strong since it is uncancellable damage, which is nice. But I don't see the oversaturation that you discuss and worry about. (There are 3 counterstrike and 1 counterstrike tactic for Empire)

Empire is all about finesse and counterstrike is a strong mechanic, but definetely not their best deck design. I would say Jumping Jacks or Hand Control is a better Empire strength than counterstrike in the current card pool.

It's certainly not a "problem" in terms of balance. It may be a "problem" in terms of game tempo in the future, since it can tend to lock down the board without really doing much on offense. While Intervention is already a good card, I think it's a good thing that they're making it more of centerpiece, to perhaps tempt some Empire players away from Verena combos.

Imo Chaos has many ways to corrupt units. Thats one easy way to go around counterstriking units. And an very effective one.

Plus saying the Empire has an over saturation of counterstrike ability is like saying the Dwarves have an overabundance of toughness. Each race has something cool and this is the Empire's, plus the current units with counterstrike are **** expensive and often become developments if drawn early in the game.

I think everyone has had some good points. I suppose that one of my fears is that if this trend continues all of the races might become a little one dimensional if empire is the counterstrike race and dwarves are the toughness race. I know there are already a couple of cards that break this trend but I hope to see more subthemes explored more in the future and hope that the developers keep developing new abilites like toughness and counterstrike to help keep the game interesting. I doubt we will see anything like this in the first cycle or expansion as the themes of the races are still being established, but I really hope that abilities won't be developed just because they aren't in the main rulebook.

Looking at the way in which Thrones was developed I doubt that we have much to worry about something becoming stagnant or new mechanics not being introduced.

Yes, bouncing off of dormouse's correlation to AGoT... we might even find (arguably) that there will be too many mechanics being introduced and not enough spread of old mechanics in new Battlepack Cycles. See last paragaraph of OP in this thread.